HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1990-11-14, Page 5Silly
slaughter
Regarding the federal government plan
to slaughter all the bison in Alberta’s
Wood Buffalo National Park:
Could someone run that by me again?
The way I understand it, there are some
4,200 bison wandering around in the
wilderness area ‘way up on the sub-arctic
forehead of Alberta.’ The bison comprise
one of the last - and the largest -
free-roaming herds in the world.
Our government wants them dead. All of
them. Why? Because, according to the
government, about 50 per cent of the herd
is infected with either bovine brucellosis,
tuberculosis or a combination of the two.
They’re concerned that the diseases could
jump from the afflicted bison to healthy
domestic cattle herds -- and ultimately, to
you and me.
A legitimate concern if Wood Buffalo
National Park sat in the dairy country of
rural southwestern Ontario, or if it border
ed on cattle range near the foothills of the
Rockies.
It doesn’t. Wood Buffalo National Park is
17,500 square miles of primal wilderness
between Lake Athabasca and Great Slave
Lake. Finding a holstein or a hereford in
Wood Buffalo Park is about as likely as
An economist’s
defence of Free Trade
BY RAYMOND CANON
One of my readers has challenged my
support of free trade in the light of what
has happened subsequent to the signing of
the historic document. How, he has asked,
can you continue to support such a concept
when we have seen a series of companies
all over southwestern Ontario close their
doors and move either to the United States
or to Mexico or, what is even worse, go
right out of business?
He has a valid question and deserves an
answer. I have the feeling that there are a
great many people in this part of Canada,
not to mention other parts, that have the
same question and might like an answer as
well.
One of the problems with the great Free
Trade Debate was that opinions tended to
get polarized; you were either 100 per cent
for it or against it. If you want to go back
over the articles I have written on the
subject, you will find that I was in a
distinct minority; I pointed out that on
balance I was in favour of such a move.
This was to a considerable degree due to
the fact that there was no viable option.
Those who were violently against free
trade had nothing to put in its place except,
perhaps, a retention of the status quo.
Frankly that is under no circumstances an
option since the world is moving with such
rapidity in such a direction that we have no
choice; we have to move as well. The status
quo is, therefore, definitely out.
One of the unfortunate aspects of the
free trade agreement was that it took place
just as the country was coming out of a long
prosperity stage of the business cycle.
Since we have not yet learned how to avoid
recessions but only mitigate them, we were
bound to go through a period when
bankruptcies and unemployment would be
on the rise. In addition, the Canadian
dollar has been far too high over the past
year to be any good whatsoever in
promoting foreign trade. It should be in the
vicinity of 80 cents, not 86 cents and it is
not surprising at all to see our products*
take a beating when compared with those
of other countries, most of all the United
States.
To blame plant closures on the free trade
agreement alone is, therefore, unrealistic
and reflects more than anything else a
finding a herd ot oison grazing on the
astrofurf of SkyDome.
Even if there was a cattle ranch next
door, it would be a lot cheaper and simpler
to string a fence or clear a buffer zone
around the park than to try and track down
and destroy such a colossal herd of
animals.
Think of it: 4,200 shy and survival-savvy
wild animals with a wilderness area almost
as big as Nova Scotia to hide out in. How
many hunters will the government send
in? How will they possibly know if they
killed every last buffalo? They’ve allocated
$20 million for this macabre massacre. If
they miss just one infected buffalo, they
might as well have thrown the 20 million
bucks in Great Sla've Lake.
Ecologists are protesting Ottawa’s apo
calyptic approach to the “bison problem”,
not just because it’s obscene, but because
it’s stupid. After all, the government’s
been aware of the situation for some time.
Since 1925, in fact, when government
officials knowingly introduced infected
bison to the area.
That was 65 years ago. The bison,
infected or not, have thrived. And today,
after the better part of a century, there has
not been a single documented case of one
cow or one human being contracting
brucellosis or tuberculosis from the ani
mals in the park.
Ecologists point out that the destruction
of the herd will wipe out the largest, most
diverse American bison gene pool on the
myopic approach to the problem. I have
found that well over 90 per cent of the
comments I read about free trade are made
by people who are anything but objective;
such people are by and large looking only
for negative aspects and refuse to look at
the other side of the picture.
I could point out, for instance, that there
are people screaming in other countries
about unfair Canadian competition or
because a Canadian firm has moved in and
bought out a local manufacturer. Those
horrible people at McCain’s don’t even
have a French name and yet they have
moved into France and currently control
over half of the country’s French fries
business. At the same time the equally
predatory Bombardier have bought out
both a British and an American aircraft
manufacturer. In short, never forget for a
moment that there are two sides to this
foreign ownership coin; you can’t look at
one side and ignore the other.
If there is one industry that needs a bit of
sympathy, it is the farm community which
by and large finds itself in a real squeeze,
part of which is due to the free trade
Letters
Take the trees away
Open letter to Council of the Township of
Hullett
Respected Council,
In response to our meeting of Nov. 8 at
your council chamber, we hereby request
that you immediately remove the trees
remaining on our private crop land until
you can legally establish and register (the
disputed land) the other way.
Our reasons are:
•1. Four of the seventeen trees are
seriously effecting my land drainage.
•2. All 17 trees are planted in excess of
13 feet from the centreline of the travelled
part of the roadway and are in excess of 66
feet off the neighbouring crop line.
•3. All of the trees are severely
hampering our cropping practices.
•4. All the trees are obstructing our
access to a public road from which the
township has removed all previous drive
ways.
P.S. The reason for public attention is
because we are still awaiting a reply to two
previous attempts to correspond.
Don Greidanus and Family,
planet. Gene diversity is what keeps whole
species from vanishing. Once the govern
ment rifles fire and the bison die, there is
nothing government scientists can whip up
in their petri dishes to recreate those
genes.
It’s ironic. When white men first came tc
the western plains they found them
carpeted with herds of buffalo as far as the
eye could see. Our rifles soon fixed that.
People used to shoot the buffalo from
moving trains, not even stopping to take
the meat or the hides. In no time, the huge
herds were just a memory. Soon the only
place you could see bison was in zoos, or
stuffed in museums or, in winter, rendered
into coats to keep Winnipeg cops warm.
That’s partly why Wood Buffalo National
Park was created - as a refuge for the
largest remaining herd of bison in the
world.
Now we’re bringing out the rifles again
- for the animals own good. Of course. You
bet.
What of the wolves in the park? What
are they supposed to eat once the bison are
gone? Well, the feds say if the wolves turn
to moose or fur-bearing (read commercially
valuable) animals then the wolves too will
be slaughtered.
This is wildlife management?
A suggestion to Ottawa: why don’t you
end the controversy over Wood Buffalo
Park once and for all?
Why don’t you just pave it?
movement. However, again the world is
trying to move away from the enormous
subsidies which have been the order of the
day and which are costing taxpayers in the
western world close to $100 billion. If you
live on a family farm which has been in
your possession for generations, you are
indeed in a bind but I have already pointed
out that consumers are demanding that
their food be marketed in such a way that
works counter to what the same small farm
can produce.
A little while ago the mayor of the city of
Sarnia was complaining about all the
Canadians going over to the States to do
their shopping. There seemed to be little
else except the traditional wailing and
gnashing of teeth. Therein lies our
'problem. We have no time to be groaning
about all the injustice of it all; we have to
learn to be more efficient in what we do; we
have to get out and promote foreign trade
as if there were no tomorrow. The world is
not going to wait for us, and if we do not
respond to the challenge, things are going
to get worse before they get better.
R.R. 1,
Londesboro.
Take care
THE EDITOR,
I’ve just learned a lesson the hard way,
and as the old saying goes, you pay for
your mistakes, I certainly did.
Ladies when shopping, don’t leave your
handbag or wallet in the shopping cart, on
the child seat.
Recently whilst shopping in a Depart
ment Store I only left mine in a cart for a
couple of minutes when it was stolen. I
never saw the thief. After a frantic
half-hour search one of the in-store
security found the handbag still in the
store. Fortunately only the money was
gone. It was quite a relief to know credit
cards, driver’s licence and other important
papers were entact. It could have been
worse I know.
Just take heed ladies, don’t make the
same mistake.
Barbara Brown
Kitchener.
THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1990. PAGE 5.
Letter
from the
editor
Some random
thoughts
BY KFITH ROULSTON
Some random thoughts about recent
happenings ...
While Prime Minister Mulroney would
draw a crowd of protesters these days if he
announced a week of national holidays, you
had to have some agreement with the
protesters at the Conservative Party fund
raiser in Toronto last week. While the
protesters’ complaint that the money spent
at the dinners should go to the poor and
homeless may have been a bit utopian, it’s
still a little sobering to think that 1700
people could afford to pay $500 a plate for
dinner and a speech. A lot of those people
will probably go to the supermarket this
week (or send their cooks) and complain
that food costs are too high.
In case you haven’t got a calculator, that
works out to $850,000 for one dinner. The
Conservatives aren’t alone in this kind of
fundraising, of course. The Liberals have
been having fundraising dinners in Quebec
recently and will no doubt be in Toronto
soon as well. Despite what we think of
politicians, political parties need money to
operate and without healthy political
parties we don’t have a healthy democracy.
Still ...
At the recent fall banquet of the Huron
County Historical Society speaker Allan
Skeoch spoke on the Barnardo children
who were sent out to Canada late last
century and in the early years of this
century. Often these were homeless child
ren living on the streets of London and
other big industrialized cities of Britain. In
some cases parents, impoverished by the
industrial revolution, gave up their child
ren in the hopes they would find a new life
in Canada.
The disturbing part of Mr. Skeoch’s
speech was how he related the situation in
those times of Dickens to Toronto today. A
teacher in a downtown Toronto school, he
spoke of the thousands of young people
living on the streets of Toronto; talked
about the crack dealers who hang out
around the doors to the school and the
young prostitutes who line the streets of
the neighbourhood looking for business;
and talked about the two and more families
living in single rooms in some new
immigrant areas as people try to cope with
the obscene cost of housing in Toronto.
Meanwhile others can afford luxuries like
$500 fundraising dinners ...
The Prime Minister was right about one
thing in his speech at that dinner though.
Along with the protesters outside the
building there was a protester inside and
some people who masqueraded as kitchen
workers in order to crash the party and
protest. Pointing to one of the protesters
the PM said he bet that guy got more time
on television news than he did for his whole
speech. You bet he did.
Mr. Mulroney suffers the same fate that
David Peterson did in his election cam
paign. Every where he goes it takes only a
handful of people to organize a protest and
the media, particularly the television
cameras, pick up the protest and it, rather
than the other business of the event,
becomes the image people see. After a
while it seems everybody is angry and
nobody likes anything a government does.
A completely false impression can be left.
Speaking of false impressions, The
Journal had an enlightening program last
week on how a 10-second clip of film may
have helped promote the breakup of a
country.
The clip was the famous flag burning of
Brockville, Ontario when a handful of
people protesting to a visiting Premier
Peterson against a bill extending French
language rights in Ontario first stepped on,
then burned a Quebec flag.
The film clip was shown on news casts at
the time but made very little impact. But
last spring, months later, the clip was dug
out and played again with the same result
as an atomic bomb exploding in Quebec.
By that time the Meech Lake debate was
Continued on page 19