Premier Don Morin announced yesterday that the Northwest Territories will join the Yukon, Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba in fighting mandatory registration of hunting rifles and shotguns.
Should Ottawa have its way, all that will be accomplished is that millions upon millions of valuable dollars will be needlessly ripped out of the country's economy at a time when the money can be put to better use.
One major target of crime control would remain untouched in this expensive piece of legislation. The criminals will still have their unregistered handguns that are heavily smuggled into the country.
Justice Minister Allan Rock rammed the law through parliament with the Liberal majority, but the alliance of governments will tackle the controversial issue in the courts.
And rightly so, for it is an unworkable law in the North where hunting is a way of life.
Throughout Canada, there is a great fear that one unwelcome effect of the gun registry is that it will create hundreds of thousands of instant criminals who fail to register their guns, for one reason or another.
That there will be civil disobedience on this matter is unquestionable. That alone throws a law into disrepute.
The bottom line is, the existing gun laws in place in this country are superb, so registering guns will not have any impact on people to do things any differently than they do now.
The rules are, ammunition is stored locked away from a gun, guns must have trigger locks, pistols also are to double-locked in a container.
Hunter safety courses dramatically reduced accidents over the decades and there is a rigid procedure to obtain a Firearms Acquisition Certificate.
They alone are adequate safeguards without imposing an unworkable southern big city law on Northerners.
(Oct. 2/96)
Some consider the Woodyard a blight, others think it has appeal.
Round houses have no place in a modern subdivision, some believe. Others champion the cause.
Whatever one's taste. there are two unescapable facts about our landscape.
Whether the Woodyard disappears by human hand -- as it was created -- is a moot point.
Weather, through its ravages, will over time claim the Woodyard as its own.
The only way the Woodyard can be preserved is to dismantle it and move the shacks indoors, or replicate as is being done with the Wild Cat Cafe.
The other means is the shacks could be upgraded, as was done to thousands of similar shacks in the 1940s and 50s across Canada after the Second World War pulled the country out of the terrible Depression.
Some of those shacks were first covered with an imitation brick made of tarred fibreboard. Today, many of them are nice little homes.
In the meantime, whatever the fate of the Woodyard, it is a tremendous tourist ace in the hole drawing card.
Perhaps it has gone unnoticed, but Yellowknife has another great hand of cards, a royal flush, with its modern architecture.
That should be promoted heavily, for Yellowknife is a true gem of the North and even across Canada. Where else can one find so many architecturally fascinating houses in such a small community?
That is the other reality and we shouldn't be square about it. Both the old and the new should be part of a package deal, along with the Aurora Borealis, to attract tourists.
(Oct. 2/96)