(Editor’s Note: Within days of Remembrance Day 2004, Bob Fowler, a 78-year-old World War II veteran–who is alleged to have shot a goose seven months ago–dispatched this open letter to Ontario’s Minister of Natural Resources (MNR). Mr. Fowler is secretary of the Ontario Property and Environmental Rights alliance (OPERa), a member of the Lanark Land association (LLa) and has been for some time now, an inquisitive thorn in the MNR’s side.)
by R.a. Bob Fowler,
November 16, 2004
an Editorial Open Letter To:
The Honourable David Ramsay, Minister
Ministry of Natural Resources
Whitney Block
99 Wellesley Street, West
Toronto, Ontario, M7a 1W3
November 15, 2004
Dear Minister: WITHOUT PREJUIDICE
by Registered Mail —copy by Fax to (416) 314-2216
Whether or not a slain goose initiated this display of government firepower and intimidation is open to speculation. Especially since this alleged perpetrator is a Director of the Grey association of Democracy and Growth (GDG), a rural landowner group, as well as the Secretary of the Ontario Property and Environmental Rights alliance (OPERa), a provincial coalition of private landowner associations. For the past fifteen years these organizations have publicly maintained that provincial and federal government agencies, behind the façade of ecological preservation, routinely inhibit use, title, value and collateral worth of privately owned rural property by regulation without compensation.
as a citizen-taxpayer, I protest the rude and threatening manner in which six armed men executed this Warrant and, in the process, invaded my home, terrified my wife, 80 years old and in uncertain health, and treated us both as no better than apprehended felons. They and their superiors must be held to strict account for a level of official behaviour better suited to the European police state World War II was supposed to banish from the earth. In that connection, I hasten to report my uniformed service to this country as a wartime air Gunner never included shooting nuisance geese or bullying senior citizens in their own home.
Two members of the visiting posse recorded proceedings in small notebooks presumably intended for that purpose. The accused was not invited to examine those notes or produce any of his own, an oversight partially remedied by listing his best recollections of the encounter from memory the next day. Obviously, rural landowners targeted for this sort of regulatory over-kill should openly introduce a tape recorder. and so verify the atmosphere, tone and accuracy of whatever version of events that hostile scribes carrying big, black revolvers may, then or later, choose to compose.
In a one-sided exchange with a particularly overbearing officer of the Crown my wife and I were ordered to ask no questions, a prohibition delivered in a menacing tone with demeanour to match. Two .22 caliber rifles, 4 magazines and a quantity of ammunition were thereupon voluntarily produced, surrendered and taken into receipted custody.
It was pointed out that I was not a hunter by inclination or experience and claimed interference seven months ago with Canada’s exploding goose population might have been a desperate effort to discourage lawn fertilization service by squadrons of defecating geese. and that, in any case, return of my modest arsenal was not required or expected. The raided property having been recently sold, unlicensed goose lavatories would no longer be a problem for the alleged offender. Thus it seemed reasonable that visiting supervisors of such facilities would probably be the most convenient, and certainly the most qualified, custodians of his anti-fertilization tools.
So much for background. Let’s cut to the chase. a copy of the original Warrant and a written account of our detailed recollections concerning its delivery and execution are available to your office upon request. On advice of professional counsel, we offer no comment as to form and substance of either document at this time. However, in light of procedural and policy issues raised by this incident we do ask, with respect, that you personally ensure an official written response to the following queries is forwarded immediately to us from your Ministry in Toronto rather than from any MNR district office.
(1) Do MNR investigations of alleged goose shootings usually require 7 months?
Impartial review of subject Warrant, particularly its colour-coded description of premises suspected of harbouring potential criminals (appendix "D"), will confirm validity of above questions. Moreover, I’m sure clear answers to same will interest your rural constituents, some of whom may one day face an intimidating home invasion by armed government enforcers as well.
Indignantly yours
R.a. (Bob) Fowler
Post Office Box 483, Durham, Ontario, N0G 1R0 / Telephone: (519) 369-2195
c.c. Premier Dalton McGuinty
Township of West Grey
Bill Murdoch, MPP
Larry Miller, MP
Garry Breitkreuz, MP
OPERa Member Organizations
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