Editor:
Last Friday's (Coast Reporter, Sept. 14) cheery report on council's solution to the trap ban issue was completely misleading and superficial.
Here's what actually happened.
On May 23 the director of the Fur Institute of Canada, a group dedicated to marketing luxury Canadian wild furs abroad (including polar bear pelts) and a champion of the seal hunt, wrote to our municipality. (See page 64 of the agenda documents for last Wednesday's committee of the whole meeting.) The director suggested Sechelt ditch any trap ban bylaw, and instead go for a meeting with the provincial minister responsible for wildlife to discuss a province-wide wildlife strategy. The motion council passed was dictated almost word for word from this letter. Only Coun. Hockley opposed. The director also said at the same time that he would be writing to the minister about a meeting.
It's impossible to understand why council would turn over its responsibilities to consider a local safety issue regarding traps in our District to the Fur Institute of Canada, let the Institute set this inappropriate policy for Sechelt, then allow it to direct Sechelt's relationship with the provincial government. And it's a very long way from the request to council, a year and a half ago, from 1,570 residents and 28 businesses to protect our community by simply banning the few dangerous animal traps hidden in our parks and wooded recreation areas.
Mayor Henderson suggested he would prefer to see a trap bylaw in place before a provincial meeting. This was roundly opposed by Coun. Moore. A motion calling for a bylaw was defeated.
So we have no trap bylaw. We have an indefinite plan for an indefinite though high-sounding meeting with indefinite players, that is unlikely to happen or have any useful result if it does.
We have the status quo.
Gene Errington, Sechelt
