Legends of the Ministry of No Resources
By Terry Meagher
Sources inside don’t say the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) any more. They call it the Ministry of No Resources. So when I read an article that New York City was warning its population to beware of rabid raccoons, I wondered how MNR was doing here in Ontario with its limited resources.
Not to worry. The McGuinty Government has made the province safe, according to its web page. There are no raccoon rabies, they say. I phoned the contact number I used eight or nine years ago when raccoon rabies was thriving here. Only this time I got an answering service that told me I wouldn’t get a live voice, ever. I phoned another MNR number and was told, after asking around, that the only person within the MNR who knew enough to talk about raccoon rabies was on holiday. I was beginning to see that this really is the Ministry of No Resources.
On paper, the Ontario government seems pretty certain raccoon rabies is licked, though it’s raging south of the border. Evidently, rabid raccoons can’t hitch rides on trucks anymore or walk across the bridges or stowaway on cargo vessels the way they used to. Evidently, there’s no one like Charles McInnis around any more to stem the flow of phony good news. Back at the turn of the century, that’s the turn of the 21
stcentury, McInnis headed the MNR rabies’ unit. He was like a general, mapping everything out strategically and brilliantly. He dropped baits in strategic spots along the St. Lawrence River, identified the hot spots and sent in trappers to eradicate the raccoons. He was a straight shooter and so successful he and his team became a legend, called upon to help control outbreaks in upper New York State and New Brunswick.As a reporter, I found McGinnis great fun to talk to and a great source of information. He noted one hot summer that the ground hog population was disappearing along with the beaver. Fishers were slaughtering the beaver, especially the young, on their migration across dry land to deeper pools. He told me stories of fishers who grabbed small dogs and carried them off under the noses of their owners. And I wrote about them. Resources or not, he was a git’r done kind of guy.
There were other legends, not so long ago. Two of them lived around Kemptville. They were adversaries. One was Kemptville farmer Ronnie Dangerfield. Back in the 1980s, he blocked Highways 16 with his tractor, before it became four lanes, protesting inadequate government compensation for expropriation. The provincial government split his farm for the highway and he wanted to be compensated for loss of income. He was awarded about $120,000, a magnificent sum in those days.
He and a local MNR supervisor, Bruce Turner, were two peas from the same pod. Two more git’r done kind of guys. But they saw things from different sides of the law. Dangerfield wanted a wolf bounty to encourage a plentiful harvest of coyotes. Coyotes should be nowhere near livestock, he believed. Turner, big, bearded, blunt, wasn’t against the bounty but he followed the ministry line of balancing nature.
I had some great fun writing articles that basically consisted of Dangerfield said this and Turner said that. Their comments were blunt, ornery and entertaining. Dangerfield would likely tell you that the MNR had too many damned resources back then.
Turner is retired now but his legend lives on. If you go down Beach Road, near Eastern Breeders, south of Kemptville, you’ll find a shop that repairs outboard motors. They’ll tell you that when Turner goes into the woods alone to fish for two or three days he doesn’t bring any food, only a frying pan and a tin of grease.
Nobody in the days of McInnis and Turner ever spoke of a Ministry of no resources.