HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2008-11-27, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2008. PAGE 5.
Bonnie
Gropp
TThhee sshhoorrtt ooff iitt
One old grandma
T hey call hunting and fishing ‘game’.
It’s the only game where the other team
never volunteered to play.
– Matt North
So these two brothers, Good Ol’ Boys, are
creeping along in their pickup, headlights off,
down a rural back road outside Owen Sound,
Ontario just after sundown. They’re driving
slow, peering intently into woodlots and brush
piles on both sides of the road.
Finally the driver sees what they’re looking
for. He cuts the ignition, coasts to a stop, nods
wordlessly towards a thicket of scrub willow.
White-tail buck. Three-pointer. Silhouetted
against the horizon.
The brother in the passenger seat rolls down
his window, hauls out a high-powered hunting
rifle from behind the seat and draws a bead.
No need to hurry. The deer just stands there
like a statue.
BLAM! BLAM! The deer is still standing
there like a statue. BLAM!
That’s because it is a statue. A decoy. Two
conservation officers materialize by the pickup
and the brothers are busted for poaching.
Hunting from a car: redneck couch potato
heaven. Almost as much fun as fishing with
dynamite.
I’d like to tell you the judge threw the book
at them, but the brothers found themselves a
slithery lawyer who argued that using a decoy
deer to tantalize his clients amounted to
entrapment. The case has dragged on through
two appeals and three years of litigation and
shows no sign of resolution anytime soon.
If there’s a glint of gold in this judicial
mare’s nest, perhaps it’s the fact that animals –
even ersatz ones – are finally getting their day
in court.
But change has been coming for some time.
Don’t forget just a few generations ago,
English bluebloods thought it great sport to
put a bear in a pit and unleash a pack of
hunting dogs to worry it to death.
Jim West might have a tough time believing
that. He’s a recreational hunter who lives up
near 70 Mile House in British Columbia. West
was out with his dogs scouting for moose one
day when a hunter’s worst nightmare came
thundering down on him. He got himself
between a bear cub and a very angry Momma
Grizzly.
She swatted him sprawling, not once but
twice. West grabbed a tree limb and swatted
back. He managed to stun the bear, then kill it
with the tree limb.
West stumbled back to his vehicle and drove
himself to a hospital. The cuts in his scalp,
arms and face took 60 stitches to close. He was
lucky to be alive.
Then his real troubles started.
Word of his encounter hit the media – along
with the news that conservation officers had
tracked down and destroyed two bear cubs the
mother bear had been protecting. Animal
rights crusaders ignited a firestorm of protest.
West’s phone began to ring around the clock.
A blizzard of e-mails hit media outlets across
the province.
One zealot went so far as to impersonate Jim
West, sending out a fake e-mail in West’s name
claiming that actually, his dogs had started the
whole thing by chasing the bears up a tree.
One woman accosted West and asked him
why he hadn’t ‘just run away’when he saw the
bear.
I doubt that West would have got very far.
I’ve been told that in a 100-yard dash, a grizzly
can outrun a horse.
Jim West agrees. “You can’t outrun a mother
bear,” he says.
A lot of folks get a tad dotty when it comes
to our relations with animals – few more so
than Jennifer Thornburg, of North Carolina.
Excuse me – that should be Cut-out
Dissection.com of North Carolina. Ms
err…Cut-out Dissection…had her name
legally changed to publicize the plight of
animals which wind up as specimens in high
school biology classes. She acknowledges
that her new moniker can be a bit of a pain.
“I normally do have to repeat my name
several times when I am introducing myself,”
she says. But it’s a price she’s willing to pay
on behalf of the suffering animals.
Yeah, well…
Looney Tunes like Ms Cut-out
Dissection.com aside, perhaps we actually
have hauled ourselves a rung or so higher on
the evolutionary ladder. Maybe we’ve
outgrown the notion that we can treat the rest
of the natural world as our personal
amusement park-cum-petting/shooting zoo.
If so, Lady Margo Asquith was ‘way ahead
of her time. The British socialite and wife of
an Earl lived when bear-baiting was still legal
and ‘riding to the hounds’ was all the rage. At
a ball, she overheard someone extolling the
remarkable jumping prowess of various fox-
harrying horsemen. “Jump?” sniffed Lady
Asquith, “Anyone can jump. Look at fleas.”
Arthur
Black
Other Views Blam! Blam! a-hunting we will go
Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty is
finding – like a Progressive
Conservative predecessor, Mike Harris
– even powerful premiers are not above the
law.
McGuinty has been told by two courts a law
he brought in that gives farm workers the right
to form associations, but not to bargain
collectively with their employers over
pay or job conditions, violates their
rights and the province will have to
change it.
McGuinty has been asked quickly by New
Democrats to assure he will not appeal the
judges’ ruling and said he needs time to think
about it.
But the case closely resembles one Harris
lost, on same-sex relationships, and it seems
unlikely any attempt by McGuinty to persuade
the judicial system to change its mind would
be successful.
McGuinty had the legislature pass his law
soon after winning an election in 2003 and
following a long debate in which an NDP
government gave farm workers power to form
unions and bargain and Harris’s government
took it away.
In more recent decisions, the Supreme Court
of Canada upheld the Constitution’s Charter of
Rights and Freedoms, which gives residents
the right of freedom of association, allows
hospital employees in British Columbia to
bargain collectively and that province violated
this by passing a law interfering with
collective bargaining.
The Ontario Court of Appeal has now
reinforced this by ruling the law McGuinty
brought in substantially impairs this right and
has to be re-written.
In the case with similarities involving
Harris, the Supreme Court of Canada found
the Charter requires provinces to give same-
sex couples the same rights they give couples
of opposite sexes living together.
Harris’s government was opposed to
providing these rights, but complied
reluctantly. Harris said he considered
marriage as “me, my wife and our two
kids,” although ironically he separated from
his wife soon after and was seen with younger
women.
To show he disapproved of the new Ontario
law that was required, Harris gave it an odd,
unwieldy title, An Act To Amend Certain
Statutes Because of the Supreme Court of
Canada Decision In M v H, while most laws
have titles of only a few words – but he still
obeyed the court.
McGuinty will not find it easy to comply
with the courts’ directions. There are
arguments for and against giving farm workers
power to form unions and negotiate
collectively with employers.
They are among the lowest-paid workers
and many, particularly in agribusinesses
such as mushroom plants and chicken
hatcheries, work under dirty and dangerous
conditions.
A case can be made readily they deserve
higher wages and better conditions when
compared to other workers.
A main argument against unionization over
the years has been farms need employees who
can work long hours when called on,
particularly during harvesting, without
restrictions that add unmanageable costs. This
is true particularly of smaller, family farms,
which are especially vulnerable.
Farms increasingly are big and in some
ways like other industries, but many still are
family businesses. Farmers also already are
having difficulty competing against lower-cost
produce from abroad, often subsidized by their
countries of origin.
No government would want either type to go
under, for the sake of those owning and
employed by them and particularly at a time
when job losses are the biggest issue in
Ontario politics.
The Liberals do not want to risk losing votes
in ridings still dominated by farmers, although
these are steadily dwindling.
The Court of Appeal has given McGuinty 12
months to introduce legislation that will
permit and protect the right of farm workers to
set up unions to bargain collectively with their
employers.
The court said the province cannot deny
farm workers the right to collective bargaining
on economic grounds, when it allows it to
almost every other class of worker.
The judgment was written by Chief Justice
Warren Winkler, the two judges sitting with
him agreed unanimously, the Supreme Court
of Canada thought much the same way – it
does not sound like a ruling that will be easily
overturned.
Eric
Dowd
FFrroomm
QQuueeeenn’’ss PPaarrkk
Sometimes the truth hurts, and sometimes
it’s just plain funny. Especially when it’s a
child’s sweet tone that delivers the caustic
bite.
My grandson has spent a lot of time in the
company of adults. He has, as a result, a
vernacular that is often unexpected, putting an
extra spin on the typical out-of-the mouths-of-
babes perspicacity.
A recent travel on snowy roads brought such
a moment. Grandpa Gropp was delivering his
eight-year-old passenger home when a light
snow began to spit a fluffy coat around them.
Looking up ahead it was clear to any observer
that that coat was going to get a lot thicker too.
The backseat driver, however, wasn’t willing
to take the risk. “Papa,” he said, “be careful. It’s
getting stormy up there. I can see better than
you, you know.”
Curious as to how this conversation could
play out, Mark foolishly opened the figurative
door, asking Mitchell why he assumed that. A
moment’s pause, accompanied by some under
the breath mumbling followed. Then after
further prompting, came the sigh of surrender.
“Well... there’s really no easy way to say
this,” he answered, the touch of melancholy in
the tone clearly indicating he wished there was.
But that door had been opened, he was being
pushed, there was no choice but to go through it.
“You’re old,” he finished.
Just guess how I reacted to that story when it
was related later. However, after my laughter
faded, light was cast in a different direction.
As I hope Mitchell does, I adored my
grandparents. But with no apologies I would say
they were old from the day I knew them. Each
was in their 60s when they welcomed my arrival
into the family and they were already physically
slowed by a life of hard work. Grandpas were
stooped and bespectacled, grandmas wrinkled
and aproned.
Yet, I was always content in their company,
whether I was chattering as I followed them
around, listening to recitations and songs, or
standing on a stool at the kitchen cupboard.
They weren’t likely to toss a baseball or embark
upon a rambunctious game of tag. Worn down
by wars, the depression and daily struggles,
imagination had long ago been put to sleep.
But they never bored me. They were
comforting entertainment, like snuggling into a
cozy chair with a blanket, a book and a cup of
cocoa on a wintry day. They felt safe. Grandma
was the soft touch to run to when mom and dad
were giving you a rash. Grandma was the calm
and quiet assurance, the gentle voice to separate
you from the craziness. Grandma was the one to
take the time when others had none. And it is
these traits of my own grandmothers that I
aspire to.
That said... with a fondness for denim and
rock and roll I’ve always kind of thought Mark
and I were fairly young, somewhat hip
grandparents. I have lain on the floor, lifted a
child on my feet and spun him. I have enjoyed
rousing games of badminton and baseball with
my grandson. I have crept and crawled my way
around a game of hide-and-seek and attacked,
badly, Sunshine of Your Love on Guitar Hero.
We are, after all, the 50-is-the-new-40
generation, the Zoomers. We carry with us the
legacy of the flower children, free love and the
women’s movement. We are more proactive
about the quality of our life than any generation
before us, and exercise, cream and Botox our
way to rejuvenation.
Yet now, it seems the eyes of one child may
have been seeing me entirely differently than
I’ve seen myself. And the truth is, there’s no
arguing — his eyesight is better.
Powerful premiers not above the law
The unselfish effort to bring cheer to others
will be the beginning of a happier life for
ourselves.
– Helen Keller
Final Thought