Environment committee  Yes, Mr. Woodworth. I appreciate that. All I was going to say was that our hunting community took a hit 20 years ago when we had the introduction of the long-gun registry. When that came in, it just turned sour. A lot of men and women just gave up the sport. They got rid of thei

Environment committee  We have 6,500 members and supporters of the federation.

Environment committee  As I mentioned in my opening remarks, we have a wildlife resources card in Nova Scotia. There are 100,000 people who actually have that card.

Environment committee  We do. As a matter of fact, I think the most important part of what we do goes back to that five dollars that's collected off of our licences, which is used to generate money for research. Many of the students at Acadia University apply for that money in grants in order to study,

Environment committee  Charlie's pretty much said it. The changes are coming subtly—in some cases, a little bit more or less subtly. For instance, some birds are migrating back to the north ahead of schedule. I don't know what to tell you about climate change in Nova Scotia this year. I think we'll be

Environment committee  In Nova Scotia hunters are involved with a number of things in that respect, Dr. Carrie. For instance, in the harvesting of whitetail deer or a moose, the hunter is asked to return the jawbone of the animal to the department of natural resources. That gives them an idea of the co

Environment committee  Yes, well, we're all getting a little long in the tooth in Nova Scotia. I think the average age of our hunters is running at about 55 years. We're trying to bring more people into our program. Yes, the youth get training. We also put on training programs around the province for

Environment committee  My only experience in that, Dr. Carrie, is at the sports and RV show when new Canadians approach us. They can see us and they have a talk. I'm quite surprised, actually, how little they know about what they are allowed to do. I think the most startling thing to some of them is

Environment committee  We're not. Every once in awhile, PETA will jump up and try to do a campaign. That's the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. They will come in and try to do a campaign, but it's usually a splash and they're gone again. My observation has been that there are probably 10 pe

Environment committee  Thanks for the question. We are always on guard for legislation and ideas and proposals that are going to have a negative effect on the ability for us to hunt. We went through this process earlier today when we talked about the economics, the culture. Can you imagine a country w

Environment committee  —I've been looking at lots of legislation come this way. We're just going to stand on guard against that sort of thing, and whenever we see it we'll bring forward a letter and correspondence to make sure that people understand our position.

Public Safety committee  Thank you very much. First of all, I'd like to thank the taxpayers of Canada for financially helping me attend this meeting today. My federation isn't in a position to pay for that. Secondly, on behalf of the Nova Scotia Federation of Anglers and Hunters, I would like to thank

Public Safety committee  Yes, I have everything that's associated with it.

Public Safety committee  As you say, this could take a little while. In Nova Scotia, to take the training required to hunt, a person has to take the registered Canadian firearms training course as well as a hunter education course. They're both separate components. In some provinces they're joined toget

Public Safety committee  It's an old idea. We proposed this many years ago when the registry first came up: let's register the people who are not allowed to have firearms so that the police will have definitive information on those people. I still support that. I think that would be a great registry to k