by Jane Gaffin

WHITEHORSE, Yukon - Big-game outfitters are essentially operating on nothing more than squatters' rights and dogtags.

They are at the mercy of a territorial government's revokable licencing system and the discretionary power of a minister to withdraw outfitting concessions at any time with the stroke of a pen.

Forty years ago, this type system worked swell because of good legislation and good policy. A trustworthy Yukon game branch helped outfitters thrive. It was advantageous for conservation and wildlife management; outfitters and their hunters injected big money into the territory; and local residents had plenty of seasonal employment.

These attributes are no longer appreciated by a socialistic society. The government has shifted focus to the Marxist-Leninist attitude of seizing land and all means of production from the people in the name of protecting the environment from outfitters, trappers, farmers, loggers and miners.

Of that list of resource-based businesses, only the Yukon Outfitters' Association endorsed the Yukon Protected Areas Strategy (YPAS) last April.

The outfitters chose not to join the Group of Seven business-and-industry coalition that boycotted the so-called public advisory meetings from which media were barred.

The outfitters signed their own death warrant, despite a chilling account read into the record regarding the Wildlands Project. Its anti-everything mandate is to dismantle roads, dams, rural communities and industrial civilization while calling for the extermination of 50 per cent of humanity (Star, April 27/01).

Anybody who takes the time to do a background check on the Wildlands Project will be horrified. Yet the eco-nazis are winning simply because people blindly embrace what sounds like a warm and fuzzy concept for saving the environment. Dismantling industrial civilization and eliminating half the population would, as David Suzuki espoused on a CBC Radio production, allow the earth to green up again and the animals to frolick happily ever after.

When YPAS author Juri Peepre, the head of the local chapter of Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society and the local Wildlands contact, was asked to respond at the meeting, he declined.

The outcome of YPAS meetings were always known in advance while board members led participants into believing they had a say in the end product. Fishing Branch is a prime example of a preordained decision. Any organization sitting at the table was held responsible for agreeing to the outcome, despite the conflicting views expressed.

Just as the minister of Renewable Resources is alleged to have promised never to exercise his discretionary power to revoke concessions, outfitters thought they were promised they'd be able to continue hunting in the parks.

This territory is strewn with broken promises.

But the outfitters may have been saved from themselves temporarily. YPAS was placed on the back burner and may die a natural death.

Not only are outfitters vulnerable to a discretionary system, but they admit to operating under a bad territorial wildlife act, made worse with the recent revisions.

The legislation, pocked with gray areas and unconstitutional clauses, was slammed by judges as "a mess", "inadequate", "unclear" and "confusing".

On April 17, the outfitters' association wrote to the Yukon minister of energy, mines and resources to plead their position regarding the government's unprecedented move of revoking a concession held by Klaas Heynen.

The letter condoned the court's decision and the hefty fines levied against the veteran outfitter whose troubles began around 1998. Perhaps the association was trying to maintain its reputation by distancing itself from an operator charged and convicted on some counts for breaking the rules.

But now the boot is pinching the other foot.

While the outfitters recognize they operate under bad legislation and the court outcome carried ramifications for all operators, the group skirts the issue and will not comment as to whether the defendant may have been denied a fair trial.

No amount of extremism is too great when defending justice; it is a virtue. But to refuse to speak up for justice is a vice.

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms indicates that every person is entitled to a fair trial, which is out of reach as long as court decisions are based on incomprehensible law.

It's just as easy to write affordable and sensible legislation as it is to write gobbledygook. There has to be a good excuse for government to bring in legislation and regulation that puts a person out of business.

"Just as outfitters and guides have their responsibilities," admonished deputy justice Roland Haines during the Heynen appeal case, "surely courts and legislatures have their responsibilities."

Those responsibilities appear to have been shirked through a poorly-written act, he added. "Isn't there a basic requirement of the law that there be some certainty?" Even the Crown prosecutor agreed the law wasn't very clear.

One has to wonder why the case wasn't turfed out to send a clear message to the government that courts need better law to worth with. The criticisms from both the territorial and appeal judges raises the question of whether the act is actually within rule of law and if it is within the bounds of fair and natural justice and legality.

When Heynen was charged, his outfitting licence was cancelled, thus robbing him of the opportunity to work the concession and earn a living while his case was before the courts for several years.

That is reverse onus. A territorial law, which is supposed to take a back seat to the constitution, considered him guilty before he was judged.

Yet the Charter says any person charged with an offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. How did bureaucrats and regulators gain authority to overthrow the Supreme Law of the Land?

The only way the outfitters can get rid of the wide-sweeping discretionary powers held by a territorial minister, a regulatory agent or an appointed board is to crack open the act and insist the licencing system is replaced with a secure form of tenure.

One way to get on track is to contact criminal lawyer Edward Greenspan who reined in the out-of-control regulators in Ontario.

Otherwise, it's a matter of time before another outfitter's hide is nailed to the tannery wall for a string of offences--deserved or undeserved. Due to the way the present laws read, the accused can't expect to defend himself adequately in a court challenge.

In turn, he will lose his concession; or, as the association selfishly suggested as an alternative for Heynen, be forced into a quick sale.

A fire-sale approach sets a precedent, too. And the ones who put the suggestion forward aren't going to like the idea when it's their turn to wear the same pair of boots.

It opens the door for a group like the Nature Conservancy to waltz in and pay a quarter of what the concession is worth.

The Nature Conservancy isn't in the outfitting business, you say; the Yukon government has to approve the buyer, you argue.

The Nature Conservancy is not in the mining business either. But that didn't stop the bullying until Eagle Plains Resources finally caved in nearly two years back and "sold" six PAMA claims for $100,000. The mining company was forced to forfeit the other 32 legally-held mineral claims without compensation.

A stroke of the pen to an order-in-council in Ottawa set a precedent for banning staking in the expansive north Yukon district. It was brought to the miners by the Yukon Protected Areas Strategy.

The Renewable Resources powers wanted all signs of human activity excluded from the Fishing Branch Protected Area. Although Eagle Plains' mineral claims were there first, they were deemed a "nuisance" by government and environmental influence-peddlars. Presto! Claim-staking was banished.

Nature Conservancy, a rich U.S. environmental group with a Canadian chapter, is the government's realtor. It "preserves wilderness" by pressuring landowners into selling properties to the group, which flips over a vast majority of the "preserved wilderness" to the federal government for a handsome profit.

The Fishing Branch fiasco was able to transpire because good mining law was overthrown by a licencing and discretionary system that subsequently destroyed the hardrock mining industry and ruined the Yukon economy.

Outfitters who don't seem to be able to get their mind-space wrapped around the "now", had better at least get into the "soon". They are holding concessions at the discretion of the government, rather than titled property. It makes their concessions mighty easy pickings for the big U.S. environmental groups, especially when the governments are brokering the land sales for them.

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Copyright 2004 diArmani.com