Beyond The Commons

 Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

The keeper of the flame

by Aaron Wherry on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 5:22pm - 93 Comments

Given Larry Miller’s exalted status within the Conservative government, it is almost always worth noting his comments and concerns.

“The only good coyote is a dead coyote,” Bruce-Grey Owen Sound MP Larry Miller told about 150 people during sheep day at the 45th annual Grey Bruce Farmers Week … Miller used the debate to again state his opposition to the national gun registry. He said farmers, like himself, who once a carried a couple rifles in the truck are “afraid to bring out their guns and travel around like they used to.”

“What the MNR needs to do when it comes to unregistered guns and what have you, they’ve got to start turning their heads the same way as they do with commercial fishermen that break the law,” Miller told the meeting. “Let the farmers out there that have guns do a lot of this control.”

Tags: , ,
Bookmark and Share
  • tedbetts

    Laws, just like principles, are not intended and were never intended to apply to Conservatives or their donors supporters.

  • Matlock

    Funny, I thought the Conservative government was all about respecting provincial jurisdiction (just finished reading "Harper's Team", indeed this was something at one point Harper deeply respected).

    And yet here we have a Conservative MP telling MNR what they ought to do.

    • Leo

      If you read the article, it states Miller AND the wildlife specialists oppose the MNR as experience shows a bounty will not generally kill problem animals. His comparison to commercial fisherman is they shoot the problem seals that take the fish off the lines – they don't go out seal hunting.

  • Crit_Reasoning

    It's not uncommon to run into coyotes in parks in NW Calgary–there is ample food for them thanks to an exploding rabbit population. I came across two last week. They're shy creatures who keep their distance from humans and dogs.

    Nobody hates coyotes more than sheep farmers, for obvious reasons, so I'm sure Larry Miller's "Sheep Day" audience was with him all the way. However, I'm not sure what this has to do with the gun registry. Couldn't farmers drive around with registered guns in their trucks for coyote control purposes?

    • Orson Bean

      It's also not uncommon to run into Coyotes in Vancouver, anywhere near parkland (a lot of which is heavily wooded area in Vancouver). I wasn't aware that they keep their distance from dogs, but apparently they have no fear of kitty cats, and in fact most of the time in Vancouver if your cat goes missing, it's assumed that it was killed by coyotes. There was at least one incident where a coyote attacked a very small child in a Vancouver park.

      • Crit_Reasoning

        Hi Orson, my first reply got swallowed by WordPress. Coyotes have been eating cats here, too. They have also been going after toy dogs like chihuahuas, but they'll stay away from anything larger.

        • Holly Stick

          I'm not sure that is true. It may depend on whether there is only one coyote or more.

          In rural areas, at least, they will try to lure dogs out away from their homes and kill them, not necessarily just the small ones. And a young woman was killed by two coyotes in Cape Breton:
          http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toro…

          • leroy

            The Nova Scotia coyote is a different breed than the western coyote. They are larger and much more aggressive. Some biologists have suggested that they interbred with wolves as they moved from the west to east.

          • Emily
          • Be_rad

            Regardless of origin, I find all coyotes wiley.

          • Emily

            Ahhh well, that ended badly.
            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFDmcDW9uwc

          • Jan

            A cautionary tale for some of our politicians.

          • Mike T.

            And if you say the letters NEP, they fly into a rage and attack anything that moves.

        • burlivespipe

          Funny, where I'm at we have few to no sightings of rightwing sock-puppet frogs. Guess the coyotes do a service afterall…

    • Be_rad

      A very reasonable question, CR. Conflating driving with guns in your truck and the idea that the gun registry somehow is an impediment to this is misleading.

      • Leo

        Unless you have lived on a farm/ranch you won't get the anger against the long-gun registry. Most farmers have 5-6 long-guns – they consider them farm equipment. You hear the livestock making a fuss, possible attack, you grab your rifle and shoot the critter. Registering means paying a fee (sure they might waive it as an encouragement at first) but that won't last. Since this registry started there have been enough cases where the "powers that be" decided a certian type of long-gun was no longer acceptable so they have been seized (because you registered it) with no compensation to the owner. They do not trust this registry system thus they don't keep them handy anymore.

        • Holly Stick

          I grew up on a farm where the guns were not carefully locked away, and as a result a child was shot but fortunately not killed. I say make them register every damned gun they have and store them properly.

        • Be_rad

          I've lived on a farm come from a family of farmers and ranchers, have been a hunter since I was 17 and have no problem with the concept of a gun registry.

          To repeat my point above, it seems the MP has connected the registry to being hassled by MNR for carrying guns in their trucks. Not true.

          As a post script, where I live is overrun by deer and is a Canada Goose hotbed. I would love for hunters to make a dent in those two populations. The problem isn't the gun registry, as this began well before its adoption. Hunting seems to have fallen out of favour with younger generations and is complicated by the existence of random rural developments. They are just close enough to limit hunting to shotguns and bows and cheat hunters of the romantic idea of roughing it.

          • Mike T.

            No no, you're forgetting the imaginary conditions invented by Leo. Huge registration fees! They'll steal your guns!

        • Richard_S_Argent

          Gun registration is free. I know, 'cause I phoned up the RCMP in the summer and asked.

          • BCer in Mtl

            Is that weapon your avatar is carrying registered?

          • Richard_S_Argent

            Bien sur!

            :)

        • Jan

          There are rules to be followed in every line of work. What' s so special about these people that need to be exempt from them?

    • dave

      There's absolutely nothing precluding a farmer from carrying a gun around their property within a vehicle. They merely need to ensure it's not loaded/the clip is removed until they get out of the vehicle – being otherwise is an offence. Additionally, if they're going "site-to-site" between properties it may be wise to ensure the weapon is stored out of site and appropriately trigger locked as well to remain compliant with regulations with regards to proper storage of firearms while in transit.

      If they're otherwise "afraid" to carry guns with them it's most likely largely due to them already being in violation of the registration law out of fear and ignorance.

    • LdKitchenersOwn

      We get coyotes in Scarborough not infrequently. I know notices went up around the U of T campus here not to bother them (leave them alone they'll leave you alone sort of thing)

    • Reverend_Blair

      "Nobody hates coyotes more than sheep farmers, for obvious reasons"

      Competition for mates?

      Sorry, that was uncalled for. Or maybe not.

      • Be_rad

        I can't bring myself to re-type it here, but try Googling blonde coyote jokes and you'll see why I struggled with it.

  • Leo

    You haven't read today's news on the moose problem in Newfoundland? They are well past the hips and up to the neck.

    • Emily

      No, I had to go hunting …LOL….for that one. Jeebus, 1 moose for every 4 people! And moose collisions are no small thing…not to mention a charge during rutting season. NOT good.

  • Mike T.

    If they are afraid to use legal weapons to legally hunt, it's because it was in the Harper Conservative's interest to MAKE them afraid, instead of doing their job as MPs to explain the system and help those who needed it with the paperwork. Now their own MP claims their livelihoods could be at risk.

    • Jenn_

      Yes, I didn't get that either. We don't drive around with a couple of guns just lying in the back of the truck like firewood–I get that, and I'm glad of it. But how having a piece of paper prevents you from using the firearm is beyond me.

      • squirrellyjoe

        When I was little parents could drive around the highway with a couple of kids just tossed in the back seat, rolling about. Now the govrnmint requires you seat-belt 'em. next they'll try to tag and license them. sometimes i wishes they'd confiscate the little….

    • Emily

      42% of Canadian adults are functionally illiterate, and that probably has a lot to do with it.

      • Mike T.

        I'm not so sure. If you're a farmer, you're running a business which can easily have over $1,000,000 in capital assets, involving paperwork a lot more complex than registering a rifle. Farmers as a rule may like to think of themselves as simple folk, but they aren't stupid.

        • Emily

          I have tax accountants.

          So does any business with capital assets like that.

    • Emily

      Sigh….PING!

    • Emily

      '42 per cent of adults and 39 per cent of youth lack the literacy skills to get a good job and cope with the demands of today's knowledge society.' StatsCan

      There's the problem.

  • gottabesaid

    I'd be in favour of a coyote bounty too… if it worked. Bounties don't work. There isn't a jurisdiction where it has been tried where it has worked.

    • Reverend_Blair

      That's very true. Kill the coyotes and the gophers and rabbits over-populate. Then the coyotes come back even stronger.

      As somebody mentioned above though, coyotes will come into a yard and "call" out to the dog, looking for a quick meal. That an be a little scary, especially if you like your dog.

      • gottabesaid

        It doesn't even take long enough for overpopulation of other animals… within a season, a new coyote can be back in the neighbourhood to replace the dead one. They're also hard to kill and capture — if you fail, they're very good a learning from your mistake and avoiding whatever trap you set up for them again.

        I feel for dog owners who have lost their animals to coyotes — like the one a few doors down from me — but a bounty isn't going to help.

        • Reverend_Blair

          No, it doesn't help at all. If it worked, there'd be no coyotes in Saskatchewan at all. No gophers either, for that matter.

        • LdKitchenersOwn

          Also, as explained in the article, bounty based hunts rarely kill the coyote actually killing the sheep. You'd be better off hiring a professional hunter to kill the one coyote that's causing you problems than having farmers randomly killing coyotes for bounties. If anything, with a bounty you probably just make things worse by killing mostly juvenile coyotes, or other coyotes that are easier to kill, and leaving only the big, aggressive, hard to find, sheep-eating coyotes to pass on their genes to the next generation.

  • chet

    "Turning the other way" applies only to 18 year old pot heads, who want to get stoned with a few joints,

    not responsible farmers ekeing out a living as they have for generations…

    so says our ever-centered Toronto/Ottawa liberal elites and their cohorts in the media.

    • gottabesaid

      A joint isn't going to accidently blow anybody's head off, either. Not a fair comparison.

      Hunting coyotes is legal, as long as you have a licences and a registered gun. I'm sure the vast majority of farmers have both of those. To suggest the gun registry/enforcement of the gun registry is an impediment to farmers controlling the coyote population is a stretch to say the least.

      And I live in the country, so don't gloss me as a member of the Toronto elite, please.

      • chet

        If we could only end the sensless spate of farm killings that we see so often, then our society could be improved. Until then, I fear we're doomed.

        • Jan

          Speakings of farm killings, have you been keeping up with the Meyerthorpe Inquiry. ?

          • Gary

            Oh, you mean the one where the inquiry has made public that the officers searched the property ILLEGALLY, then got a judge to issue a search warrant due to that illegal search just prior to the shooting?

          • Jan

            The RCMP seem to have totally rogue and the government is turning a blind eye. This is just another example.

    • LdKitchenersOwn

      I believe the Tories have claimed on more than one occasion that they're not interested in prosecuting people for simple possession of pot. Still, you make a good point, somebody needs to ask the federal government which laws officials should ignore and which they should apply, just so we're all clear.

    • Jan

      Farmers never smoke marijuana. Really?

      • chet

        Yup, out on the prairie wheat farms they're a bunch of pot heads….

        again, our ever-in-touch leftists who assume the entire universe must be like their downtown Toronto Cafe's.

        • Emily

          Oh chet, grow up. LOL

        • Jan

          chet sterotypes everyone it seems. Where do you live, chet – Whoville?

          • YYZ

            How dare you cast the Whos in such a negative light!?

        • LdKitchenersOwn

          Those aren't wheat farms, that's cover.

      • Reverend_Blair

        I know I've certainly smoked a joint before operating a tractor. And I've never glued a beer cozy to the fender either. I've certainly never had rye whisky and kolbasa for breakfast. Those things would be Wrong and Irresponsible and us Church-going Rural Types would certainly have no part in them.

        Wait a minute…I have done those things. So have most other rural people under the age of 936. We don't just do them, we enjoy them. Have you ever spent eight or ten hours on a tractor? Without a little pot and a few beers, it's pretty much like watching Steve Harper lie…predictable, yet decidedly unenjoyable. Chet will call me a Toronto leftist no doubt, but he's the one going by the yuppie college-boy latte-sipping name.

        Here's a strategy the opposition might try on the prairies…remind farmers that Harper would keep them from drinking in their own field.

        • Emily

          OMG….you mean you don't have a straw hanging out of your mouth….or a chaw in your cheek?

          Way to ruin the Ma and Pa Kettle image guy!

        • Jan

          What – you don't while away the hours sitting on the porch rocking and whittling and drinking lemonade. I think chet's been watching too much Little House on the Prairie.

          • Reverend_Blair

            Sitting on the deck drinking beer and going to widdle, maybe.

          • MostlyCivil

            A bottle in the barn, a cooler in the combine and toke in the thresher.

            I was gonna say "a smoke in the silo" but you know, unless you wanna get REALLY high, that's a bad idea…

  • LdKitchenersOwn

    “What the MNR needs to do when it comes to unregistered guns and what have you, they’ve got to start turning their heads the same way as they do with commercial fishermen that break the law,” Miller told the meeting. “Let the farmers out there that have guns do a lot of this control.”

    That last sentence is TERRIFYING out of context. It makes it seem like he's suggesting we let farmers sort out who has registered their gun and who hasn't by just shooting anyone they figure shouldn't have a gun!

    Also, is MNR really routinely ignoring COMMERCIAL fishermen who are breaking the law?

    • Jan

      These same people believe judges shouldn't have discretion. I don''t know if I'll live long enough to understand them.

      • Reverend_Blair

        The real horror is when you begin to understand them, Jan. You'll be sitting there in your lawn chair in somebody's garage, sipping on a beer, feigning interest their new gun, and trying not to notice that your friends are morons. Then all of a sudden it comes to you like a flash out of the blue and you understand why they act that way. Then you guzzle rye to forget because the truth is just too damned ugly to reveal.

        • Be_rad

          Amen, brother

  • Leo

    Sheesh … that Ivison article on Larry Miller has to be the most "warm and fuzzy" one I've ever read on an MP.

    “We call him the Keeper of the Flame — the voice of principle and straightforward talk in caucus,”

    “It’s no exaggeration to say he is the most loved and appreciated person in caucus,”

    “Larry is the real article — what he says and stands for are what’s in his heart."
    http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/11/13/jo…

    • Jan

      But he's not in cabinet. Strange, no?

    • BGOSer

      Wonder how much Miller paid for that article.. Must be a re-election year.

  • LdKitchenersOwn

    What the MNR needs to do when it comes to unregistered guns and what have you, they’ve got to start turning their heads…

    Attention young Muslim extremists: If anyone asks you're "hunting coyote".

    • Orson Bean

      With an AK-47

      • Emily

        Paint -ball guns actually.

      • Reverend_Blair

        I really want to fire a few rounds from one of those.

        • MostlyCivil

          A tip: Wear an old jean jacket over flannel. Those suckers sting…

  • Dan

    The Keeper of the Flame title and the sheep reference in the story made me think of Spooky Ruben's "Are you the Keeper of the Goat" song for the first time in a decade. Classic bit of CanCon! Thanks Mr. Wherry! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6ieQa_d1-g

    • Reverend_Blair

      That's fantastic!

  • LaserGuy

    Amazing … All the ignorant city people posts regarding coyotes.. The poor widdle animals.. ahhh the shame of it..
    Smarten up morons, if coyotes were snatching more of your dogs and cats in downtown Toronto, you would be screaming a different tune…. Coyotes are a BIG problem in some areas, and many of them are simply not afraid of humans anymore. Most of the MNR officers I have met and spoke to don't even ask about registration. They simply want to see your hunting license. I'll continue to shoot as many damn coyotes as I possibly can, any bounty would be a bonus. Where I hunt them, they are so plentiful, you could actually earn a good living shooting these dog shaped rats. Go buy yourself a .223 and a rabbit decoy, sit on a hill and start picking them off. The ONLY good coyote IS a dead coyote..

    • MostlyCivil

      You've missed the point. I think most of us agree that coyotes are vermin. I'm a city boy myself, but. my dad used to pick off bunnies and gophers is Sask on the farm. Most of us city folks have more critters here than you'll ever see on a farm. But your "ignorant" comment shows your own ignorance of people who make up the population of cities.

      What grates here is an MP, saying out loud,

      A : I wish law enforcement would ignore illegal stuff I agree with
      and
      B: The stuff I'm talking about isn't even illegal, but sure is handy to whip some fundraising dollars.

      • LaserGuy

        The ONLY way you get a bad law repealed, is if enough people speak out against it. If no one speaks out, then any law, regardless of how inane will remain on the books. It will be used, as proved several times in the past, against you entirely, and selectively, at the whim of the current authorities. He is not advocating individuals should be 'breaking' the law, which would be illegal, but only pointing out that it's a bad law and should not be enforced, but should be changed.

        • LdKitchenersOwn

          Even if this is his rationale, then he's arguing that the registry is a "bad law" by claiming that it's stopping people from doing something that it DOESN'T STOP THEM FROM DOING!!! This is the same type of tactic as implying that the government's crime legislation was being delayed by the "Liberal-dominated Senate" and just hoping that no one will remember that the crime legislation was NEVER EVEN PUT BEFORE THE SENATE.

    • LdKitchenersOwn

      I think mostly of the people you're slamming are actually saying exactly what you're saying!

      What's the problem? Can't farmers go out an hunt coyotes RIGHT NOW? Of course they can. I do think it's worth noting the concerns of wildlife experts that shooting random coyotes for a bounty likely won't help with eliminating specific problem coyotes, and that there are ways in which shooting coyotes for a bounty could actually make the issue of problem coyotes worse, but I haven't really seen many (any?) posts lamenting for the plight of the coyotes yet. All of the criticism seems to be about the fact that the gun registry isn't an impediment to the hunting of coyote (as you yourself seem to attest to) and so that argument from Miller is just a giant straw man.

      Also, I'm not sure who you count as "city folk" but we have coyotes in Scarborough, so we're not exactly ignorant of the nuisance they can cause.

      • MostlyCivil

        Please send your coyotes to visit my raccoons? They keep knocking over the green bins. If they had thumbs we'd all be dead…

    • YYZ

      When the Coyote picked off a dog in the Beaches in Toronto a couple years ago there was definitely a bit of "let's not harm the Coyote" in the press – but that's just because they always look for the opposing viewpoint. I guarantee if you'd gone door-to-door, any parent or dog-owner would've just said to take the damn thing out.

  • Kaisha Thompson

    Not only are Mr Miller's comments about loose gun control insensitive when one considers this weekend's events in Arizona, but they are also ignorant. An elected Member of Parliament should not suggest, or encourage, citizens to simply ignore or disobey laws they don't like. Coyotes are a major issue in BGOS, however that does not mean we should encourage all men, women and children to bare arms. We need to have intelligent dialogue on a reasonable solution to the coyotes, not put society at risk with firearms.

  • http://dougsamu.wordpress.com dougrogers
  • EeeOar

    Forbidden

    You don't have permission to access /blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Wile-E-Coyote.jpg on this server.
    Apache/2.2.3 (CentOS) Server at http://www.feministe.us Port 80

    Ouch!! Forbidden, I am not worthy. ;-)

  • Twisted_Mentat

    I guess the commercial fishermen he's speaking of are the Icelandic, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, and Swedish trawlers decimating the ecosystem of the Grand Banks/Flemish Cap on the cusp of the 200-mile limit?

    I agree, we've got to stop giving *those* commercial fisherman the blind eye.

  • http://dougsamu.wordpress.com dougrogers
  • tobyornotoby

    Well if EeeOar is forbidden I better have a look. ;-)

  • EeeOar

    Yes! And worth the wait!!

    Many a Saturday afternoon….

  • tobyornotoby

    “What the MNR needs to do when it comes to unregistered guns and what have you, they’ve got to start turning their heads the same way as they do with commercial fishermen that break the law,”

    This is fine for me to say because I didn't swear an oath to uphold the laws of Canada, but it's a little unnerving that someone whose WHOLE JOB is to propose and debate legislation to be enacted for the benefit of the country, would think that it's okay to pick and choose which laws to follow.

  • Selena

    Here in Nova Scotia I get the impression that the fisheries officials are quite serious about illegal fishing. The laws are there for a reason, it is offensive that some Conservative hack can openly counsel breaking the law. No wonder the present government has the attitude it does,he's a leading light in a basket of dim bulbs.

  • Jan

    Especially so when this is supposed to be the party of Law and Order. Is it too much to ask that they show some consistency? And where he gets the idea that fishermen are allowed any slack is beyond me. They certainly aren't on the west coast. It's just another wedge to drive people apart.

Previous

Next

From Macleans