Martin Reid says he’s been forced to buy a fishing licence to remove carp that are swimming in a metre of water on his flooded-out fields.
He says he bought the permit to avoid the problems he faced the last time he was forced to remove fish from his flooded farmland. In 1993, Reid was fined $1,000 for illegal fishing.
“My father and I … were charged by Fisheries and Oceans Canada,” Reid recalled. “We were jointly responsible for having caused the death of fish for reasons other than sport fishing.”
Reid says the fine will jump to $100,000 if he’s cited a second time.
He’s under strict orders to safeguard the lives of the carp once he begins to expel them.
Related poll!
h/t Larry
Expulsion and protection… and no mention of a fish fry…
What have I been telling you about Oceans and Fisheries and culverts. This story does not surprise me one bit.
The neighbours didn’t like the chopping up bit. Put up a screen and the carp will make good fertilizer; will the neighbours like that stench?
I have already warned my councilor to make sure the RM gets a fishing tag before performing any road repairs!
See, that’s what happens when you don’t have a friend at city hall. “Nice farm you got here. Shame if anything would… happen to it.”
The really, really scary part? If he fought it in court, there’s a decent possibility he would -lose-. The law probably doesn’t make the distinction of flooding vs. usual water, and he could get a freakazoid greenie judge. Its Quebec, right?
I’d say let it dry out and STINK a while then plow it under, but the sonsab1tches could claim it as a wetland. Probably aching to do it already.
Taaaaax cut! Fisheries Canada needs to be too small to bother this guy unless they get -hundreds- of complaints, not just one fricking phone call from some p1ssant eco-weenie neighbor.
In the mean time, perhaps the farmer would consider that five or ten Bordens to the most likely willing inspector is less than a $100,000 fine. Nudge nudge, wink wink, that’s the math everybody else is doing.
Going to be like Mexico here real soon.
Has this guy never heard of natural fertilizer? Just leave the damn things to die when the water recedes when the land is firm enough to work, till them in like they were the straw or whatever from last years crop. You will be surprised at how complete a fertilizer they are if there is enough of them. DO NOT EVEN TELL THE GOVERNMENT THEY WERE THERE. THEY CANT SAY NO IF YOU DO NOT ASK!!!
Bob:
Exactly so. Save frigging carp? We used to shoot them with arrows along the Red River north of Winnipeg and do exactly that with the carcasses. Dig a hole, fish goes in, tree goes on.
This guy hasn’t heard of crop rotation, evidently. Idjit…
Carp aren’t even proper fish. They’re varmints.
Shoot, shovel and shut up.
Ralph Klein
Lets all calm down, things are about to change. This garbage will soon be mitigated in an adult mannner, when business minded, adult themed people take the reins of power without liberal/ndpee children tugging at their elbows as they round the curve, this environMENTALism is DEAD, it is now about feeding your children, and keeping a warm house (if you can keep it ) not filling that maggot Suzukis pockets with, millions. TO STOP GLOBALL WARMING HEH DAVID, what a SCAM you got away with Dave, ever feel guilty some old ladys, including my Aunt on Cumberland St, are eating dog food cause she sent you money you despicable piece of CBC, DM, Dog Manure.
The story is unbelievable, so is the high water. I hope this guy gets the topsoil that it washed away from my lawn after if washed away my “seawall.” It was good stuff. I have five feet less lawn, but I can’t complain, really. This guy? He can complain. The French claim that speaking French changes the way you think. I believe them.
Money quote from the regulatory state:
This is obscene. These farmers are already dealing with a natural disaster and now they have to deal with a man-made disaster: the heartless, anal retentive officials of Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
Un-be-liev-able.
The Reids aren’t “fishing,” you dumcoffs, they’re trying to save their land — and, now, they have to protect the carp swimming in the waters that flooded their farmland?
That should be Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s job. They’re getting paid to do it — or not do it, as the case is here — while the Reids are not getting paid to babysit carp or to work around the clock to try to save their farm and their livelihood.
What’s happening here is a gross abuse of government power and harassment.
All the other stupidity aside why the hell would anybody want to protect carp? Aren’t they an invasive alien species in those parts. I know they are here. The lakes and rivers have filled with these filthy things and there is a big program in place to try and keep them out of the Great lakes.
The self same goberment agency that helped destroy the cod fishing industry, bureaurats what can you expect but mindless drivel.
Ah carp fertilizer …
Where I grew up quite often in the spring the creek on our property would overflow on the field and we would spear carp , some of which were 20-30 pounds.
At the time I read about using them to fertilize cucumber mounds , so I “planted” one carp in each mound and planted the cucumber seeds on top.
Everything was going great until August when it was really hot ( and the carp were very ripe). Our dog decided cucumber mounds were great to roll in … came back with dead carp flesh covering him … the smell was so bad you couldn’t stand to be near him … tied him to a tree and hosed him down … never used carp as fertilizer after that !
What a bunch of idiots – their idea helping Saskatchewan and Manitoba through the worst situation in decades.
And across the Border:
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/27/dam-releases-are-killing-hundreds-of-thousands-of-fish-farmers-say/
Fisheries and Oceans should be paying Farmers for “Carp Trespass”.
Flooding happened a few years ago in Sask., Department of oceans and fisheries (dummies) was going to slow the road rebuilding because the fish needed time to swim back into the lake. STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES MRS. GUMP
“”The idea is to help farmers,” said Jean-Philippe Detolle. “The licence was issued to reassure them they won’t be fined.””
That is the best line in the story. It is the equivalent of the Mafia in the protection racket telling you “We want you to pay us this money for your own protection against us beating you half to death every Friday afternoon in your place of business”
I have been saying for many years now, that the government is nothing more than a huge protection racket .. you pay them their demands in fees, licenses, taxes etc. and they won’t put you in jail.
You think?
Diktat is creeping in ever so gently to this country. It is in the name of safety and environ-mentalism.
Consider this just in the past few weeks.
People in Slave Lake were ordered to get out of their houses and would not be let back even after the fire.
May long weekend, the Alberta bureaucrats shut down camp fires in spite of raining cats and dogs.
In Calgary, after the recent rains police arbitrarily shut down boating on the rivers just because. Policeman on the radio actually said “we thought, we just shut it down”.
It is a fact today, that the bureaucracy has so much power that they can pretty well get you in prison, in no time flat if you don’t heed their diktat.
Communists, fascists, national socialists would be proud.
And DFO has offices in Alberta, presumably because creeks flow into rivers flow into other rivers which flow into oceans, and ocean fish are their business! As a result, folks trying to work in the rocky mountains have to make sure that they don’t run afowl of federal fisheries.
bartinsky @ 4:54, lets hope so, but bureaucrats have a knack of convincing politicians that their expanded departments are a good thing.
DJ @ 9:45, that is one of many similar stories.
yah, I remember a couple of years ago that these idiotd (beaurocraps) were diktating to Harper
time for a mid-east style uprising against beaurocraps
I suspect that if this fellow lets the land drain or dry up without saving the carp – the animal rights groups will step up and have him charged with cruelty to fish by not providing them with the necessities of life.
I cannot understand what it is that happens to your intelligence when one becomes a ‘government’ employee.
John Poole was one of the first men to warn councils here in Southern Ontario about the impending cluster f@#$ headed towards rural landowners. He was drainage superintendent of what was then the township of Aldborough (along the shore of Lake Erie). That was at least ten years ago and he has since died, but he was more right then he knew. If more men had the balls and wherewithal he had we wouldn’t have bureaucrats calling in many cases insane shots. I could add many a story to all the above as I’ve been working in municipal drainage for over twenty years but make no mistake Ocean and Fisheries have cost taxpayers much more than just their budget to exist. They have had an impact to drainage design and the price of the job and when it can be done for at least a decade here in Ontario. However the extra cost is “hidden” in a tender, it’s there if you look, but many don’t.
people complaining is kind of what gets these thugs that work for gov. to think they have cause to harass working people. people should think twice before complaining because the result is always more gov.
This is quiet typical for DFO. In my area of the Fraser Valley they have prevented road maintenance from keeping roadside ditches clean which results in road flooding during heavy rains. Farmers in the area who dug drainage ditches on their farm experienced DFO declaring their drainage ditches fish habitat, which meant the farmers were not allowed to maintain the ditches. One could probably fill a book with all the stupidity and abuse of power by DFO in BC.
So my thought of putting up signs directing the carp back to the river probably wouldn’t make them happy.
As the signs can be in French only it could be argued these carp were English speaking only and therefore deserved extinction.
When the judge says that is a ridiculous supposition the reply could be “I”m here aren’t I.”
Regarding that “Related Poll”:
I can’t believe they did not include “Indian Affairs”, which costs taxpayers about $10 billion a year.
aren’t carp an invasive species?
shouldn’t the bureaucraps been ENCOURAGING their destruction?
But according to the story he has to fish for both Male and Females? How does one do that?
Bureaucracy gone totally mad.
I’m sorry, but that outraged me enough to write an email to the DFO minister, the PM, and my MP. It’s just beyond disgusting. The provincial busybody piling on is just…gah! I have no words.
Too many effing bureacrats and not enough work to go around. Cut here, cut now.
Bulldozer next time? Or just leave them dry up?
Just how did fsheries and oceans get involved in the first place?
Some snivel services employees that need to be fired.
Why doesn’t he apply for some kind of grant to make his property an aquatic preserve of some kind? If he has to save these slippery buggers, the government can feed them. Not with taxpayer money, though. The Fisheries and Ocean people can do it.
What lev said @10:27. PMSH has a steep row to hoe, but I hope he gets right on those self righteous, puffed up roosters/hens in the bureaucracy. The free running bureaucrats make life hell for citizens. Like chickens they are impossible to herd but they are docile when they don’t get fed. The bureaucratic flock needs a job cull.
After DFO maggots had more or less done themselves out of a job by wrecking the east coast fishery, they migrated west to try their magic on the Pacific side. A few got sidetracked and ended up on the Saskatchewan PRAIRIE where they are in charge of driving municipal administrations nuts with their interference on the control of creeks (many of them actually intermittent!) containing a few fish. Culvert washed out? Not to worry. You can have a permit to replace it with a small bridge sometime next summer. Irrigation canal spilling water across a municipal road? You can have a permit to fix it – eventually, after we do a fish census.
Those bastards aren’t just a nuisance. They’re a plague.
Zog nails it.
I’m confused here, what has federal fisheries have to do with an inland provincial wildlife resource? Tell them to get stuffed with their fishing licence, they’re ultra vires in this action. If they persist in their pretense of jurisdiction over inland fisheries, I’d send them a notice to remove their fish from my property forthwith or the owner will act to remove the hazard and bill the state for his expenses.
I surely now understand why land owners are ready to go after these pillaging administrating parasites who make property ownership a blur.
Well think of it this way, the carp have responsible government, even if we don’t.
We probably soon will be paying for the air we are breathing.
Carp smell as bad as politicians. So contact his MP. to put an end to this bs.
If they don’t respond say within a week, mail the MP a fish, postage due.
Like milk is an oil spill, this borders on fanaticism of the Small tin horn bureaucrat mentality, of a bullying tactic to those they consider inferior.
Its becoming scary when you end up aggreeing with the majority. Government shouls keep the mail running & take care of the militaary & borders.
Keep out of any buisness period.
The absolute right to own property should be the first new legislation passed by the Conservative majority government. The bureaucrats can then investigate themselves.
DFO has its head office in Ottawa. That explains everything.
ping, in an AMAZING burst of insight said: “aren’t carp an invasive species?
shouldn’t the bureaucraps been ENCOURAGING their destruction?”
YES ping, what you say is correct. Welcome to your new home, Conservatism.
Your next question will be: “Why should we pay these Fisheries people to work against Canadians’ common interest and in this case against common sense?” Answer, we shouldn’t.
Do you now see what I mean about the tax cut thing?
If the government has less money, then there are fewer bored Fisheries officers looking for something to do. Therefore it will take a lot more than a phone call from some malcontent to jazz them into motion against a farmer pumping out his flooded fields.
@ Mario at May 29, 2011 9:23 PM
We already pay for the air we breathe. In BC we have a carbon tax.
The two most dangerous federal departments in Western Canada are Fisheries and Oceans and Nav Canada. Fish in rivers and fresh water lakes should be the jurisdiction of the provinces and there are no rivers in the prairie provinces that need Nav Canada’s heavy handed involvement.
We were working on a job that had a new water treatment plant intake in the Bow River. A Nav Canada guy was flying the River by helicopter, landed on our berm and shut down the job right there(with threat of huge fines if any work proceeded) turns out the town’s consultant didn’t get a permit for this berm and the project was shut down for a month. The town paid hugh delay costs that in the end the cost is passed on to the taxpayer. It’s the Bow River, the only river traffic are canoes and kayaks, it’s definitely not the St. Lawrence with shipping traffic. Make work project for bureaucrats.
Big government is evil.
While some people believe the timing doesn’t appear too great for a party advocating Western Independence, this story shows clearly why it’s time to send the feds packing.
Dana
Leader WIP