Snowmobilers vs DFO

The struggle between the South Shore Restoule Snowmobile Club and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is a perfect example of Government run amok. Apparently the Club wanted to safely cross a small stream and after some consultation, installed a suitable sized culvert.

This culvert was large enough for the local minnows to navigate, and in fact, would have been a good place to hide from marauding herons. However, five technocrats from the DFO decided it was “a hazardous alteration of fish habitat” and ordered the culvert removed.

There is no doubt a defined size for waters large enough for minnows and other swimming critters to navigate. Every year municipalities replace or install thousands of these culverts in minnow-navigable waters along our roadways. Lumbering companies no doubt install hundreds of temporary culverts or bridges over streams and ponds. It seems that the DFO has authourity over all of these installations.

This would be the same department that will not prosecute the owners of cargo ships that trail an oil slick for hundreds of miles along our ocean shorelines. They would be the same folk who turn a blind eye to bilge pumping in our great lakes. It is much easier to go after a Snowmobile Club.

Now the Snowmobile Club might have known better than to consult with any government body but they have faced so much opposition lately that they naturally wanted to avoid any further public censure. Perhaps they ought to have just put up a couple of ramps, much like skate boarders do, and jump their machines over the stream.

What worries me is that these five intrepid public servants from DFO are still on the loose. I can see them holding up the culvert replacements within the City of North Bay next summer. Any place a minnow can swim becomes suspect and I know of several roadside ditches that would qualify. These are the same five ( god forefend there are more!) who studiously ignore shoreline ‘improvements’ by wealthy cottage owners who make minor changes to fish habitat without telling anyone.

But what really worries me is that these guys will take on my friend, Mr Castor Canadientis. Nobody changes more fish habitat than our industrious beaver. Not only does the beaver make hazardous alterations to fish habitat, but they fell trees without forestry permits and then build houses without building permits. The Sudbury crew from DFO is missing out on a whole range of prosecutable events all across northern Ontario!

If the DFO is really concerned about changes to fish habitat then they ought to be chasing after Ontario Power Generation. Every time they drain a reservoir or release a flow of water from one of their dams, thousands of minnows take a real beating. Could it be that OPG has more money for litigation than the Restoule Snowmobile Club?

I admit that we need to look after our creeks and shorelines, but surely there has to be a miniscule of common sense in enforcement. Sending five people to do the job of one is a perfect example of how our tax dollars are being wasted by big government. It is exactly the thing that drove Mike Harris to the Common Sense Revolution. It is exactly this kind of bureaucracy that drives volunteers from Clubs and Associations.