Right in the centre - Strong leadership needed
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- Published on Thursday, January 26, 2017
By Ken Waddell
The Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press
Last week, some folks tried to trip up Premier Brian Pallister when he said he didn鈥檛 want to see the whole issue of night time big game hunting and night lighting become a race issue. He鈥檚 right it shouldn鈥檛 be a racial issue. In fact, it shouldn鈥檛 be an issue at all.
Night time hunting, by anyone, makes no sense whatsoever. So if night time hunting were to be illegal for everyone based on safety reasons, then night lighting wouldn鈥檛 be an issue either. Neither practise is tolerable in my view, in fact, to even contemplate hunting at night with any kind of weapon makes no sense at all.
There may be some who will say that night hunting is some kind of traditional practise or that it鈥檚 OK in remote areas. I don鈥檛 care, it doesn鈥檛 make sense and should be stopped. That said, I am all in favour of people being allowed to hunt to feed their families. I think that is fine, regardless of ethnic background. To turn around and sell the meat, then I have problem with that. It鈥檚 wrong and I would encourage the government to stand against that practise.
On the other hand, the deer population needs to be culled in urban areas. We have people investing large amounts of time and money in establishing nicely landscaped yards and having to watch the deer demolish the trees and shrubs. In Canada, there are millions of square miles of wild and rural land where the deer and other critters can roam freely. Towns just aren鈥檛 on the list.
I have to laugh at how birds, such as Canada geese and Snow geese can take over river ways, parks and golf courses. They are indeed very pretty but the mess and annoyance and sometimes aggressive behaviour aren鈥檛 so attractive. Now, I love to watch and hear geese as much as the next person, but do they have to be protected in parks and golf courses where there is often so much goose grease, you can hardly walk for the mess?
Anyway, enough about nature and wildlife. How about a little bit about United States politics. Let鈥檚 set the context. It鈥檚 not as if the American democracy should contain a lot of surprises. The elections are held every four years and the political campaigns are endless. With off-year elections in year two and presidential elections in year four, it should be no surprise that an election is coming and the parties need a candidate. Donald Tump is now president and so far he is doing everything he said he would do. He鈥檚 assigning cabinet positions to strong-willed people and cancelling a bunch of legislation that he doesn鈥檛 like or that his people don鈥檛 like. He is doing what he said he would do. Given the usual habit of politicians to say one thing and do another, some people are in a state of shock. I am not a Donald Trump fan but I actually found it quite entertaining that the media predicted the election totally wrong. Most countries, especially Canada, are in panic mode because they have no idea how to deal with a politician that it is very conservative and who does what he says he will do. Across all three Canadian federal political parties there are very few individuals who can speak up for Canada鈥檚 best interests in a way that will get Trump鈥檚 attention. I personally don鈥檛 feel our prime minister is a strong player on the world stage and without leaders, the CPC and the NDP need to choose carefully as to which chief they elect. The people of the United States have given Trump a clear mandate to strengthen their positions on everything and our leaders had better be ready to compete.
