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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2005-05-05, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MAY 5, 2005. PAGE 5. Other Views A hunting we won’t go There is a passion for hunting something deeply implanted in the human breast. - Charles Dickens I like to check in with the hunting fraternity from time to time, just to see what’s up. . I’m not a hunter myself, although 1 used to be. as a kid. I fired everything from slingshots and bows and arrows to a.22 bolt-action and a twelve-gauge, but I gave it up when I realized that, while I loved hunting, the killing part bummed me out. And one day after watching the light fade from the eyes of a fox I’d shot, I decided I could find more enlightened things to do with my spare time. But to each his own. I understand the magnetic pull of hunting for some folks. Well, mostly I do. I must admit I’m having some trouble wrapping my mind around the hunting saga that’s set to unfold in British Columbia’s Rocky Mountains. Later this year, one Chris Ott, a ‘trophy’ hunter from Naples, Florida, will take his favourite rifle up a B.C. mountainside and blast the bejeezus out of the biggest Rocky Mountain Bighorn ram his certified hunting guide can lead him to. Mister Ott will be the only hunter on the mountain. That’s because the hunting season won’t be open yet. But that’s okay. It’s all perfectly legal. Mister Ott has paid for the privilege of hunting alone and out of season. He’s paid $150,000 U.S. To the B.C. government. The abiding irony here is that the provincial government plans to use Ott’s 150 grand to...promote sheep conservation. Excluding, of course, the ram whose head will be hanging on Mister Ott’s wall. Ontario’s conservative divided If Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives were a married couple, they would seek counselling. They have a new leader and ambitions to win an election in two years, but just can’t seem to get along with each other. Their differences have been shown not in verbal denunciations that win headlines - the Tories have avoided these — but, more important., in votes in the legislature. Premier Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government in the latest secured approval for landmark legislation giving the province and municipalities powers to designate, regulate and prevent demolition of heritage properties. Twelve Conservative MPPs, including heavyweights former interim leader Bob Runciman and former deputy-premier Elizabeth Witmer, voted for it. Six Tories, including another former deputy premier, Jim Flaherty, and Norm Sterling, their senior MPP and a minister as long ago as the early 1980s, voted against. Witmer said it builds on and improves earlier Conservative legislation, but Sterling said he could not support taking away owners’ rights to use their properties as they see fit without compensation. The Liberal government obtained approval of a law through which it will try to cling to some role in censoring movies after the Ontario Superior Court ruled it has no broad power to censor. It will classify all movies, so consumers and particularly parents will have guidance on their content, disapprove adult sex movies it feels violate the Criminal Code, and tip off police. New Conservative leader John Tory, and eight of his MPPs including Witmer and former house leader John Baird supported it. Arthur Black Oh, well. At ieast the nimrod will be taking the trouble to come all the way to Canada to make his kill. He could have just turned on his computer and bagged his bighorn on-line. Or a blackbuck antelope or a wild boar or just about any other wild animal that’s walking around on a ranch just outside San Antonio. Texas. That’s where North America’s only internet hunting service is being offered. For a hefty fee, any hunter (or psychopath, for that matter) with a computer anywhere in the world gets to manipulate a camera and to virtually aim and fire a gun which will kill his chosen animal in real time. For an extra fee, ranch hands will ship the head and meat back to wherever the 'hunter' lives. The idea is so revolting that even some hunters are opposing it. Fourteen U.S. states have moved to ban the practice. Texas wants it banned as well - but only for animals that are native to the Lone Star State. So is that what we need to stop such idiocy - more laws? Ummmm, maybe not. There’s evidence that the only bigger nutjobs than extreme hunters on the loose are certain lawmakers who seek to control them. Consider the plight of some farmers in England who are plagued with crows and starlings eating thejr crops. but eight Conservatives including Flaherty and Runciman voted against. Conservatives who endorsed the legislation praised it for at least trying to hang on to some censorship, but Flaherty, a former attorney general, said the Liberals are timid in accepting a ruling by one judge and should appeal as high as they can. The Liberals brought in legislation that allows diners to take their own wine into restaurants that accept the practice and drink it with meals. Thirteen Conservatives voted against it, but Sterling, Norman Miller and John Yakabuski, voted for. Miller and Yakabuski said they did not have much of a problem with the legislation, but most Conservatives argued strongly against, saying the Liberals are merely trying to divert attention from real concerns, and restaurants will have less control over how much customers drink, but will still be legally liable for problems they cause. The Liberals made Ontario the first province to have a lav/ aimed at banning pit bull terriers, which have caused horrific injuries. Most Conservatives voted against, arguing legislation should focus on all dangerous dogs and not a single breed, but Sterling voted for, another instance of being out of step with his party. The British Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has given the problem due deliberation and ruled that the farmers do have the right to shoot the birds, but only if they give the birds a ‘last-chance’ option. b> shouting, waving coloured streamers or employing other ‘frightening techniques’. Failure to try to scare the bird can result in a $13,000 fine and/or a six-month stretch in the slammer. It gets even wackier in Australia. A farmer named Glen Steinhardt in Murgon. Queensland appealed to the Australian Environmental Protection Agency to help rid him of his starling problem. He reckoned that upwards of 5,000 birds a day were flying in and destroying his wheat and sorghum crops. The Aussie EPA issued a permit allowing Steinhardt to shoot....87 birds - but only if he spreads the kill over an 85-day period. Steinhardt shakes his head, pointing out that when trucks passing his farm drive through the swarms of birds, they usually kill “50 or 60 in one strike.” But the EPA has no problem with that. Those are ‘accidental’ killings. On the bright side, lawmakers have managed to draw a curtain on that piece of preposterous British pageantry that features half-snockered, horse-riding aristocrats dressed like clowns accompanied by baying hounds, chasing a fox to exhaustion whereupon the animal is ripped apart by the dogs. Yes, friends, the infamous British foxhunt has been officially declared illegal. “The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable” Oscar Wilde dubbed it. Imagine what Oscar would have to say about the Newfoundland seal hunt. But Sterling has long been noted for his independence, including being the only senior Conservative to warn their Tory prem-er William Davis was being a dictator and could cost his party an election by extending full funding to Catholic high schools in the 1980s — such prescience and outspokenness are worth keeping. The Conservatives have shown they are divided over allowing same-sex marriage. The Liberals brought in a law to facilitate the marriage ceremony, which is under provincial jurisdiction, and Tory expressed support. Some of his MPPs, however, said they disapprove. The Conservatives have split even on minor issues including whether the legislature should sit nights. The Conservatives can be forgiven some splits. They are a party in transition from the far-right policies of formcy premier Mike Harris, perpetuated to some degree by his successor, Ernie Eves, to the more moderate stances of new leader Tory and have not yet got all their policies sorted out. But parties normally make more effort to debate their differences in private and resolve or bury them, then go public with policies that make them seem united. The Conservatives have some strengths, but voters are bound to wonder if a party can run a province when it can’t get its own act together. Final Thought Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. - Sir Winston Churchill Bonnie Gropp The short of it Warts and all rhe world is perfect everywhere, Save where man comes' with Ins torment. - Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller. 1 suppose that’s all in your perspective. As far as I’m concerned if the world were indeed perfect I would forever be immersed in a veritable paradise of palm trees and tropical warmth, azure sky and aqua sea. Instead after a long trip home, I returned from a wonderfully hedonistic holiday to an area that just refuses to let winter go. This 1 suppose would be my torment then. It was typical of the way fate likes to toy with me that I chose the week when temperatures here soared to unseasonable heights to make my trip to balmy breezes. It was also typical that the weather since my return has been disappointing to say the least. The snow, the cold, the bleak grey skies have always to me been the ruination of an otherwise perfect corner of the world. But there’s nothing like a holiday to help one gain some perspective. I was wonderfully spoiled during my break. My big sis and her husband have usually taken good care of me and this trip was no exception. With the real world a thousand miles away I allowed myself to be pampered, to let the responsibilities and stresses of a typical life slip to the background of my mind. With nothing to do but relax and unwind, body, mind and spirit enjoyed the kind of rejuvenation that is as vital as a deep cleansing breath. A view of the ocean, the aesthetic pleasure of flora a^d fauna soothed and calmed. And with plenty of good food and wine, I was fed and fattened well in time for the long trip home. It’s amazing how restorative a break can be. Though duty had once weighed heavy, 1 was now ready to take on the world. My brain seemed suddenly clearer with less (though not nil) muddled thoughts to confuse it. But most importantly was the re-gaining ot my perspective. Life has a way of dragging one down. We may recognize that someone else’s troubles are far greater, but it doesn’t make ours go away. It doesn’t take a lot of common sense to see the futility in sweating over small things, but that won’t necessarily help us to stop. A positive remark we can brush off as inconsequential, while we let the negative burden us for days. My first hint that the vacation had had a good effect came while watching the heavy snowfall on my first morning back. There was a slight bit of disgrunllement, before a smile found its way onto my face. At least, I told myself, 1 had been blessed with the opportunity and the means to have had my week in the sun. (My goodness, was that actually me finding the silver lining all by myself?) And then, a sound began to work its way through my quiet thoughts. From outside my window came laughter and squeals of delight. Peeking out 1 saw my two little next door neighbours playing in the snow as enthusiastically as if it were the first snowfall of the season. Finding the joy and pleasure in what they had been given for that day was something they did without question. It was a good lesson for me, one which my newfound, though unfortunately certain short-lived, perspective permitted me to see. The world isn’t perfect. It certainly has its share of boils and warts. But it looks a whole lot better if you don’t let the flaws torment you.