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Calgary Herald DATE: 2007.01.04 EDITION: Final SECTION: Sports PAGE: F2 COLUMN: Bob Scammell BYLINE: Bob Scammell SOURCE: Calgary Herald WORD COUNT: 815 ILLUSTRATION: Photo: Garry Breitkreuz; Photo: Inky Mark NOTE: Second Glance: Commentary, People Schedules, TV -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hot items remain on outdoors table: Trapping 'n' fishing, gun registry among sizzling morsels -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The heavy year-end feedback and feed-in was unusually serious about big issues -- even somewhat political. Yorkton, Sask., member of Parliament Garry Breitkreuz e-mails excerpts from a speech he delivered Nov. 25 in Toronto to the Canadian Shooting Sports Association titled, Bill C-68 Still Not Repealed, So I'm Running For My 6th Term! Breitkreuz is Canada's most informed, active and dogged opponent of the national gun registry and some other alleged gun control measures contained in the bill. In his speech, the MP outlined what has been done and still needs doing, and gave this candid summary: "We have been united in our 12-year fight to repeal Bill C-68. I will never give up, and hope you will stay with us until it's dead and gone. . . . Rest assured, we are making progress and we will keep our promises to you and the millions of gun owners in Canada. Unfortunately, it's not going to be while we're in a minority position." (Emphasis mine.) Another determined campaigner, Greg Shyba, reports, somewhat similarly on the considerably shorter, but intense battle to end B.C.'s licence fees discrimination against non-resident Canadian anglers (meaning mostly Albertans) on "classified" waters in the east Kootenays: "Despite promises of change by politicians, we still have nothing to take to the bank or, more appropriately, the businesses we are boycotting can take to the bank." There has been a spate of e-mail outrage over the 201 to 58 defeat in Parliament of Bill C-222, the Heritage Hunting, Trapping and Fishing Protection Act. This was a motherhood private member's bill introduced by feisty Dauphin, Man., MP Inky Mark to recognize the right of all Canadians to hunt, fish and trap. Much of the unfriendly fire was aimed at the 14 Alberta MPs who voted against the bill. Alberta outdoors people are a tad testy Alberta is one of the few provinces that has not passed similar legislation, a defect new Minister of Sustainable Resource Development Ted Morton has suggested to some questioners he might rectify. Harsh critics of MPs voting against Mark's bill might well consider that private members' bills are rarely passed, on the general principle they are usually ill-considered, this one in particular failing to take into account that hunting and fishing legislation and regulation are matters of exclusive provincial jurisdiction. Calgary reader Ron Summach submits an interesting account of his hunting season, considerable of which took place in areas of the province where deer heads are being collected from hunters for testing for Chronic Wasting Disease. Summach writes: "I sure hope the CWD problem is taken care of before it becomes like Saskatchewan." Well, it surely, but slowly is becoming like and coming from Saskatchewan, as the year-end results of the head-testing program in five far-eastern Alberta Wildlife Management Units reveal. Private fish and wildlife consultant Ray Mackowecki of St. Paul comments: "Well, one per cent CWD in wild deer is holding firm, with now more than five identified in Alberta in 2006 and 16 identified, total, out of 1609 Alberta heads tested. . . . But we shall see. . . . I expect we'll see one or more in other parts of Alberta." What we need are more feisty and dedicated representatives like Garry Breitkreuz and Inky Mark, federally and provincially, to put the game ranching boondoggle and CWD source out of its misery. A major means of passing CWD is through saliva and, some authorities also suggest, through the remains of infected animals, all lending significance to a late-year Alberta Information Bulletin stating that Fish and Wildlife has received numerous complaints about wildlife parts being dumped in roadside ditches and on public and private land this past season. The bulletin advises that dumpers could be fined up to $50,000 under The Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act. That fine would be a fitting reward for the creeps who, three years in a row, have deposited orange garbage bags and tarps full of ungulate parts at the same rural road intersection in WMU F324. Reader Brian Horejsi sends along a fascinating article from The Oregonian about retired lawmen patrolling private forestry lands in that state to prevent them being trashed by recreational ATV riders. Horejsi comments: "Even industrial landowners are revolting against off-road vehicles. And private land owners have almost never permitted the damage and abuse. So why should the public permit the abuse of public lands? . . . I think it's time for a tough position and tough action." Well, the Kamikaze (which is what I call all ATVs) question is starting to be raised and debated wherever outdoors people trade tricks, one of the best places being the current issue of Alberta Outdoorsmen magazine.
GARRY BREITKREUZ: COMME
LE C-68 N’EST TOUJOURS PAS ABROGÉ, JE BRIGUE UN SIXIÈME
MANDAT! |