Dunedin, Florida - The tendency to set oneself up over others, to lecture them and to wag a disapproving finger under other people's noses is one of the most regrettable manifestations of liberalism in 21st-century United States, and goes a long way to explain why such a large chunk of middle America refuses to fall in behind the men and women who have appointed themselves their natural leaders. But a product that has failed in the domestic market can still be exported and may yet find a market off U.S. soil.

And what more natural market than Canada, that mainly English-speaking nation that so conveniently abuts the U.S. northern border -- Canada, like the United States, a vast country with huge swaths of undeveloped territory thinly inhabited by uneducated rural hayseeds just waiting to be guided to the path of moral righteousness by their intellectual superiors south of the border?

Responding to the clarion call, the staff of the Humane Society of the United States will exit their plush lobbying quarters in downtown Washington, D.C., today and propel themselves northward to educate uninformed Newfoundlanders and Labradoreans of the central wickedness of their annual harp seal hunt and to demand that they terminate it immediately.

Granted, this harvest is a national historic tradition. It is clearly sustainable and provides employment for a range of people who otherwise have few alternatives to television and an unemployment cheque. But such considerations as these are as nothing in the face of U.S. reformist zeal. Canadians must change their ways -- their superiors south of the border have told them so.

Moreover, if these northern children prove recalcitrant, then they must be punished with a boycott of all Canadian fisheries products. Now that really is a way to get the attention of an already hurting eastern Canadian fisherman and his family: Take even more of his income away.

All of which leads this Canadian to ask one straightforward question: Just where do the Humane Society of the United States and its friends think they get off?

For those who harbour fond thoughts of HSUS, please do not confuse it with the Humane Society, which is manned by admirable men and women who provide animal shelters and medical treatment for lost and abused animals, most notably cats and dogs. The Humane Society of the United States has nothing to do with the Humane Society. It maintains no shelters. It is an "advocacy" agency -- a lobbying group and nothing more. The organization is, by its very name, a U.S. operation. On what basis do its leaders presume to cross the border and wag their fingers under our noses for a practice that goes back as far as our nation itself? Did anyone vote for these people who presume to tell us how to shape our wildlife policy and who threaten us with economic retaliation if we fail to fall in line with their dictates?

Do we intend to institute a counter-measure, get on buses and travel down to Washington to tell President George W. Bush to get out of Iraq? If we did, I think we all know where we would be told to go -- back home. And that's where the Humane Society of the United States belongs, too.

Eugene Lapointe, the president and founder of IWMC World Conservation Trust, was the secretary general of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) from 1982 to1990.