Again, if you are charging somebody on the basis of conservation and you find out that the issue wasn’t really conservation and you have charged somebody and you find out that the issue of conservation wasn’t the factor, the factor was that it was an undercount by way of the lack of or amount of time it took to count the species that is in question, in regards to using conservation as the reason to charge people. Now you find out that the herd is way over or a lot healthier than you basically used the situation of going out there and saying we are down to two caribou. You can’t shoot one because if you do that there is only one left over and we have a healthy herd in regards to the Porcupine caribou herd, but yet people have been charged for a simple thing as going hunting and shooting a cow caribou, because it was a voluntary order in order to shoot bulls. Any Aboriginal person in their right mind will tell you, you do not shoot bulls in the fall time when they are rutting and yet that is when you expect people to be shooting bulls. Traditionally you don’t shoot bulls when they are rutting, traditionally you shoot the cows, you leave the bulls so that they basically can rut and you can’t eat the meat when they are rutting anyhow. Things like that that traditional knowledge would have brought you, which people where telling you that in the first place, but again it just does not meet reason or mind. So, I will ask again, I know that the Minister said sorry because the charges were laid, the charges were laid with bad information and people are now carrying criminal records or have been charged and basically have a record on file that is going to affect them for the rest of their lives.
David Krutko on Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
In the Legislative Assembly on February 22nd, 2011. See this statement in context.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
February 21st, 2011
See context to find out what was said next.