Turk_man

The MNR in Ontario has now stated that hunters from the northern part of the province will get preferred treatment when it comes to issueing tags. I feel for the guys up north but how can the government do that? Alot of northern hunters apply single and can`t figure out why they don`t get tags. Maybe they should form hunt camps and take holidays like us "southerners". Maybe they should cut back on outfitter tags. Issue more to residents since we are the ones that fund the MNR through our taxes (the bulk of which comes from the southern part of the province). Better yet just do away with group applications and make it a crap shoot residents and non-residents alike. We apply every year with no Pool 1, or Pool 2. If you draw a tag ten years in a row great , if you never draw tough. The hunters in the North complain about never getting tags but that has alot to do with the fact they want to hunt in their backyard, drive abit like I do and you`ll get tags. Still surplus tags availiable if you want to drive. Nothing against northerners but if I pay the same taxes as you I should get the same treatment.

TerryM

I heard rumors about this nonsense last winter. What are you basing your information on? Have the MNR posted anything officially to this effect?
What we need is a preference point system for moose. You accumulate points for every year you don't draw, and the people with the most points get preference. Pretty simple and fair in my opinion. I would also take it a step further and make the points only valid for tha zone you applied for. By that I mean if you hunt area 11 for moose you can't go and accumulate points in area 49 to guarantee yourself a tag after X amount of years. You want a tag in a zone then apply for that zone. Doesn't matter, the MNR will never go for it, too simple too fair!! Our genius Liberal government is too busy passing laws prohibiting the giving away of wild game meat and chasing game farms. If this Northern preference thing goes through they are going down a slippery slope. What next prefence for medical care for Toronto residents because thats where the hospitals are? None of this has any common sense or fairness. Oh wait a minute I forgot, we're talking about LIBERALS aren't we![:@]

Turk_man

Here`s what I read, More moose tags for northern hunters by 2005
By Dan Gauthier

Miner and News

Northern Ontario moose hunters will have a better chance of receiving an adult tag in next year's moose lottery, says Minister of Natural Resources David Ramsay.

Ramsay said on Friday the MNR is reviewing the moose tag allocation process and lottery technology to ensure residents of northern Ontario have better access to adult validation tags by the fall of 2005 hunting season.

"There are ways to do a preferential draw for northerners," said Ramsay. "So we will, in some sense, make that happen next year."

Ramsay was responding to criticism last week from both NDP leader and Kenora-Rainy River MPP Howard Hampton, and NDP natural resources critic and Timmins-James Bay MPP Gilles Bisson. Both Hampton and Bisson said Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty has not followed through on his True North 2003 election platform that promised to give Northern Ontario hunters a better shot at moose tags this year.

Ramsay, however, defended the Liberal leader and his northern election platform as a four-year plan, not a quick-fix strategy.

"When you launch a campaign platform, these are the goals over a four-year period," said Ramsay. "You're basically laying out a program over the term of a four-year government and you can't do everything overnight."

Ramsay said the NDP was wrong in their criticism as the ministry has allocated nearly 400 more adult moose tags for resident hunters this year on top of more than 16,000 tags that were available in 2003.

"That's got nothing to do with the promise they made in their election platform," said Hampton.

Hampton said that the number of available moose tags across Ontario are not the issue here as they are allotted based on the size and strength of the moose population. He said the real issue is changing the lottery system to the advantage of northern Ontario hunters and is skeptical that the Liberal government will have this new system in place by 2005, especially since the moose tag draw takes place in the spring.

"Unless they have an altered lottery system already in place, that won't happen by the fall of 2005," said Hampton of the planned changes to the moose tag draw. "You need to know what you are doing on this."

Ramsay said the new lottery system would have been in place sooner if not for the outdated computer technology in place that the draw was implemented on in the 1980s, but again promised to have it place by the next hunting season.

"It will be done," said Ramsay. "Those changes will be in place by the fall of 2005."

Hampton said that both he and his natural resource critic Bisson will hold the minister to this promise as will all moose hunters across northern Ontario.

"I'll be watching with interest and I'm sure Gilles Bisson will also be watching with interest over the next six months," said Hampton. "This issue can create more heated public discussion more than any other issue I know."

TURKEY FAN

Contact Clint Beardy for hunts in manitoba. [email protected] or see the web-site below.

seadog

That's all we need more of this BS north ,south, east, west crap.

Spot Light

Well I hate to say that any one should get "better treatment"......but I am from the "North" and although I am from an WMU that offers a low % on adault moose tags, my dad and I have not seen them in 14 years. Please understand that I see moose walk the shoreling from my house and I spend months of the year patterning and scouting for the season. We are hunters for substanance, and it is unexplainable to not be able to harvest the animals that walk through our yard, and even worse to have a hunter come from 600 miles away and set up a 100 yards away and shoot the moose you have watched all year. I understand that our economy depends on tourist dollars but the economy of the rual areas of the North is poor and we depend on such hunting for food. I would like to have the chance to hunt "Bug Jon", "Charlie", "Ed".......or some of the other moose that I have observed since they were calves.

Adrian J Hare

I can understnad you thoughts here, The thing I don't get is Why is there a problem now with moose tags. I thought the MNR had the population on a rise. Also what up with surplus tags ? Thought there was lots in the north?...BT

TerryM

I can see that its frustrating to not draw a tag especially in 14 years! But we all pay the same taxes and are all equal citizens in Ontario. Our group of hunters usually has a tag but that is because we hunt in northwestern Ontario in zones like 9A or 16B. That's a 24 hour drive for me. You can do the same and get a moose tag. To start and give preference in anything because of your postal code is biased and unfare. How would you like it if your kid was denied access to sick kids hospital in Toronto because you don't live there? Pretty extreme example but it starts somewhere. If you want a tag, do like the rest of us and spend the money, burn holiday time travelling, and sleep in a wall tent in the bush. I wish I could hunt moose from home also.

Spot Light

Well I can understand that we all live in Ontario and therefor we should all recieve the same benifits. But I would like to point out that in the small Northern community where im from my taxes are the same and you are right there sir, as well as all the other parts of paying to become an equal member of Ontario. BUT!!! I drive 35 minutes to pick up my mail, drive 25 to the garbage dump, have a dirt road that I plow myself, not one stop sign or stop light in my community. Is this what you meen by equal members? or is it the fact that I have to suffer from the clear cuts for the lumber for all our "equal" citezens. Or is it all the pollution from the factories that I dont work at in the South, that seems to find its way into my drinking water and food. I understand what you meen and dont get me wrong I am an Ontario resident but to say that I am like you or some one from Toronto is wrong. Dont get me wrong I hunt in a tent and take my vacation in the fall as well, after all I have to because groups of people litter the shore lines of the lake that my house is on.

TerryM

Yes I'm sure they do but even larger, much much larger groups fill up my favourite rainbow streams down in Southern Ontario. They have as much right to the renewable natural resources as I do even if does not suit my personal interests. To deny tags in a lottery system will be biased and unfair. The reasoning is quite tranparent. You could piss off every moose hunter in Southern Ontario and statistically speaking we would have no effect whatsoever in an election. The opposite is quite true in the north. It will guarantee a win in the north and yet have no effect down south due to population size and electoral riding. THere are ridings in the GTA that have more population than all of the other ridings up north together. Doesn't matter a seat is a seat and that lieing B@#$%^D McGinty is just buying some insurance and screwing tens of thousands of southern hunters. I will say it again. Drive 24 hours like we do and you will get a damn tag!!!!