From Bear Bait to Birkenstocks
How money and the urban vote killed the outfitters
by Brit Griffin

HighGrader Magazine March/April 1999

They had hoped the place would be packed. That people hearing about their situation would fill the Capitol Centre in North Bay in a show of support. That opposition politicians would stand up and denounce the cancellation of the spring bear hunt as a cynical ploy meant to capture votes in the city. But on the day of the big rally (Saturday Feb. 13) only the outfitters and hunters came the people who had become the fall guys in the Tories' attempt to avert the green dollars of a well-heeled pressure campaign.
Realizing that few had come to support them, they vowed to support each other - men with camouflaged baseball caps and Harley Davidson crests, women with their boys, driving in to Mike Harris' hometown in their beat-up, pick-up trucks emblazoned with the slogans of a defiant but beleaguered culture : Buy a Gun Piss off a Dictator!
Jerry Vatour was there. "Just two weeks ago I was just Jerry in the bush," he explained, "Now I'm going to meetings, learning to organize." But Jerry was also quickly running out of money. He apologized for being prudent about returning phone calls the bills were mounting and there was no way to pay them.
Texas MacDonald came with his sons from Baldwin Township outside of Sudbury. The cancellation of the bear hunt had put Tex behind an economic eight-ball. Being a bear guide is a marginal existence at best. The outfitters survive on advance payment which is spent on supplies, trade-shows and living costs long before the hunters arrive. Like most outfitters, Tex was on the hook for a lot of money. Money he didn't have.
"I don't know what to say to my customers," Tex confessed, "When they call me I just ask them to be patient till maybe we can sort this thing out."
Roxann Lynn drove down from Moosehorn Lodge near Chapleau. She stood up to address the crowd by saying she had come because she wanted to put a face on the word outfitter. She seemed pretty tough at first, but then there she was, into the crying. The spring bear hunt provides 90% of her family's income. Already her credit card was maxed-out in an attempt to pay back hunters. She was now starting to dip into her kid's educational savings.
Hard luck stories? The Capitol Centre resounded with them.
But just as money troubles are now putting many outfitters under personally, they realized that much bigger money troubles put them there in the first place. In particular, the money of multi-millionaire Mr. Robert Schad. Two months ago, few people in the room had ever heard of the successful industrialist.
But the way it was being told around the Capitol Centre, Robert Schad gave Premier Mike Harris an ultimatum - end the spring bear hunt now or face a major influx of cash into an anti-Tory campaign in 12 swing-ridings in the Golden Horseshoe. What did those ridings have to do with the bear hunt? Nothing. But given that the Tory majority rests on 15 seats within the city of Toronto alone, compared with zero seats in Northern Ontario (outside the Premier's riding), it was simple math.
When it comes to putting his money where his mouth is, the German-born Schad has proven himself more than willing. The head of Husky Injection providing plastic engineering for both the auto and pop bottle industries Schad (through the Schad Foundation) has underwritten numerous environmental causes from the Suzuki Foundation and World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) to the International Fund for Animals (IFAW).
But the bear hunt was his baby. Schad jumped on board the campaign against the spring hunt after being disturbed by bear hunters at his cottage. In 1997, he dumped $700,000 into the anti-hunt campaign.
The money was used to target weak Tory ridings in the south. The "Take `em Out" campaign was launched with graphic videos being dropped off door-to-door throughout the Golden Horseshoe.
Minister of Natural Resources John Snobolen was apparently unimpressed with the high-level pressure tactics. Emerging from a Northern Ontario Tourist Outfitters (NOTO) meeting with Robert Schad's people in Thunder Bay last November, Snobolen was reported in an Ontario Out of Doors article to have said: "I don't know about you people, but I don't respond well to threats."
Snobolen then committed himself on paper to the spring 1999 hunt. "It is important to remember, " the Minister wrote in December of 1998, "that the issues being raised by those concerned about the spring bear hunt and the use of dogs focus on differing societal values rather than conservation."
Those differing societal values came in to play big time with an election looming. Mike Harris' decision to cave in caught everybody by surprise outfitters, his own party, even the environmental organizations.
"To be frank," says Ainslie Willock of the Animal Alliance, "we would have agreed to a phase out. It was a complete surprise but they (the Provincial Tories) wanted it done before the election."
The Toronto-based Willcock says now that the spring hunt is over she would like to get work on a manual to teach northerners the "ABC's" of how to get along with bears.
And as for other political action? Willock says that the animal rights organizations are now committed to using the targeting strategy to further a wide range of wildlife related issues, including the Newfoundland seal hunt.
Willcock has reason to be cocky. After all, what other pressure group has managed to make the defiant Tories blink?
"I think we have a clear idea of why we were successful and we will be using the strategy on other wildlife issues. When seats are at stake suddenly politicians can stand up and make the ethical decision."
Although the Schad Founation says its finished with hunting issues, other groups might not. Willcock says that now that the spring hunt is out of the way, the door is open to go after other hunting issues including possibly the fall moose hunt. "I would love to go after moose," she enthuses.

Abuse of Process
If it had been any other issue, the fact that a multi-millionaire was using his wealth to put so many northerners out of business would no doubt have attracted a wide range of outrage. But few progressive groups want to be seen on the side of hunters. Particularly the spring bear hunt. Seen as a trophy hunt for Americans, it had become the lightening rod of anti-hunting interests. Whatever the outfitters did to prove that the tales of orphaned cubs were exaggerated and overblown, they made little progress against the emotional impact of the Winnie-the-Pooh in the tree photos being employed by the Animal Alliance.
The outfitters have called for an Environmental Assessment on the impact of the hunt and say they will abide by the decision. But now that the hunt's been stuffed and mounted on the mantle of the anti-hunt crusade, that's unlikely to happen.
And despite the fact that outfitters have been left holding the bag with little warning, the Premier's decision has been given a soft ride at the party level by opposition Liberals and the NDP. Both seem to have chosen to hibernate rather than tangle with the green vote and, possibly, Schad's greenback arsenal.
Foundation spokesman David Cotter says Schad's money isn't the point. "It strikes me that any Ontarian, or Canadian, should have a right to have a say as to how wildlife is used in this province, or the country. To say that southerners shouldn't have a say is ludicrous. ....And having money doesn't preclude a person from spending it on an issue that they feel concerned about".
Jerry Vatour sees things a little differently. Vatour looks upon the sudden cancellation of the hunt as a complete abdication of public process. "A man in Toronto has a dream and I lose my livelihood," says Vatour, "Where is my government when I need protection?"
The Schad Foundation prefers not to see itself as a strong-arm pressure group. They would like to be seen as a benevolent force for change.
"Mr. Schad and myself," explains David Cotter, "recognize that there is going to be an economic downside to this and we want to be part of the solution as opposed to being perceived as the problem."
The solution they are offering is eco-tourism. Eco-tourism (tourism not connected to snowmachines, motor boats or hunting) is being touted as the saviour of resource-dependent economies from Nova Scotia to Alaska.
Environmental groups have been quick to point to the lucrative incomes awaiting the resource-dependent communities who are willing to part with their traditional lifestyles (see attached article on page 23 -ed.).
Professor Jennifer Craik of Griffiths University in Australia has her doubts. In her book Resorting to Tourism, she warns against looking to tourism to replace traditional economies. She cites low paying work, economic vulnerability and social disruption. Craik sees many similarities between the dilemmas facing resource-dependent communities in Australia and Canada.
"It is very easy to generate numbers on tourism growth, to say there is huge potential, but there really isn't any sanguine examination of the figures. Predictions, both at the global level and the local level, are absurd. So many communities are disappointed once they go down the tourism track. You really have to wonder why there is this kind of willy-nilly promotion of tourism. I guess part of the answer is that governments are desperate to replace declining industries and are desperate to find new jobs."
Craik points out that the competition for eco-tourism dollars is world-wide and growing. The market is already crowded. Black bear watching will have to compete with everything from big game safaris to whale watching. As the competition grows, profit margins begin to shrink.
Cotter, although admitting that the Schad Foundation is not a tourist organization, is still confident that eco-tourism is the answer. "Ontario is ideally positioned, being a two-hour flight from the largest market for eco-tourism consumption in the world, which is the eastern seaboard of the US and Central Canada. People from Japan, Germany, France and Italy will pay thousands of dollars to take pictures of bears in British Columbia. Why can't we have them doing that here?"
Part of the answer may lay in why black bears are baited in the first place. Tracking black bears in the boreal forest is extremely difficult. The animals are fast moving, shy and can smell humans on their trail long before the cameras ever get out of the backpack. Add to this the ice that can linger into April and the black fly hordes of May.
Jennifer Craik says that eco-tourism also demands a high level of change within communities. "It is often just assumed that you just have a place and people will come. But what you really need is very good infrastructure."
That takes money and a lot of effort. To lure high-end eco-tourists to the wilds of the boreal forest is going to take more than some fresh bait, a cage for the tourist and extra stock of film at local stores. As Craik points out, these high-end tourists are much fussier about what they will endure and to meet their needs often involves a large cultural sacrifice.
There are, of course, niche markets for eco-tourism throughout the north. But will the big spending Bostonian give up a trip to the wilds of the Amazon for a drive to the Balmertown dump to photograph skinny bears just out from a six-month snooze? Not likely.
But Cotter is convinced that with the hunt out of the way, urbanites will come north even as a matter of good faith.
"We have heard both publicly and privately, in the last little while, from a number of people who will go to Northern Ontario in the spring now, whereas they wouldn't before because they didn't want to be in a hunting zone. These are people who are saying, `I'll put my money where my mouth is.'"
This position is backed by another one of the big players in campaign to ban the hunt -- the International Fund for Animal Welfare. Rob Sinclair, speaking from IFAW's Queen's Park office, had this to say, "I know the outfitters will look back a few years from now and say this was the best thing that ever happened to them."
Such optimism was noticeably absent among the outfitters in North Bay. They're still trying to figure out how they'll survive an election year.

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