The 2015 Ontario Fishing Regulations have been released by the MNR

[OldTimer]

(01-10-2015 10:43 PM)zippyFX Wrote:  Privacy legislation is the likley driver for each provincial/national identification at this time. Nothing is technologically speaking is preventing a single card for multiple purposes.

How many times have we all been asked for (and required to produce) one or two pieces of government issued photo ID?............... seems these cards are not so private at these times.

[tweedwolfscream]

I think the privacy concerns would be like making sure MNR staff and license vendors don't accidentally get access to your health records? I know health card info is particularly strictly guarded.

(01-10-2015 07:54 AM)OldTimer Wrote:  Plus - sending jobs south of the border should upset all.

Should, sure. But this is work that was otherwise being done in-house by the MNR. And reducing provincial staff seems to be an easy political winner and has been government policy for some time. Now I know in this case it's work that needs to be done either way and is just being outsourced, but that's the story with government downsizing most of the time anyway... reduce staff on paper, spend the same amount of money getting the work done by someone else (or by the same laid-off workers coming back as contractors), brag about efficiencies... people love to hear about the government cutting staff but staff cuts without first reducing the workload are generally a hoax. Not saying there aren't more efficient ways to do some things, but such ways don't magically get developed and implemented when you cut staff to meet some target.

Sorry, I know we're not here to talk politics.

[OldTimer]

"Politics" are activities associated with the governance of a country.

We were simply discussing certain illogical moves, rampant mismanagement, and wasteful decisions by some local provincial elected officials, appointed ministers, or the unelected supervisory employees in those particular departments.

...grin.

BTW here's a (very incomplete) partial list of what usually requires such "private" ID:

Pick up airline tickets from any airline
Pick up concert tickets from Ticket Master
Rent a vehicle or boat
Write a cheque for a store purchase
Open a bank account
Close a bank account
Open a Costco account
Get an adult library card
Pick up a package at the post office
Get a boater’s operating permit
Buy a trailer licence.
For some – buy liquor or beer
Purchase a firearm or ammunition…. Even if you do have a current acquisition/possession licence
Vote

Cheers,

OldTimer

[tweedwolfscream]

Well, I was starting to ramble about an issue that's fairly central to partisan/electoral political discourse in Ontario, namely managing the size of the public service and making tradeoffs between public sector and private sector service delivery, hence my disclaimer/apology...

The things you're listing require photo ID by way of proof of who you are, usually a drivers license or a passport is used. But doing those things doesn't generally involve entering information into some central data bank associated with the card you're using, like the MTO doesn't get any data about what beer you bought using your driver's license. Health cards and outdoors cards aren't for ID, they're for keeping track of services provided.

The outdoors card system makes sense for hunting, because:
- the card indicates whether you've taken hunter ed, firearms safety, and/or the turkey course, so vendors are quickly able to see whether you're eligible for those types of licenses
- it stops you from buying more than once deer, moose or bear license to get extra tags, since vendors can access the system to see if you've already got your license for the year
- for animals where a set number of individual seals are available per hunter (turkeys, wolves, in certain areas deer and bears), again vendors can see whether you're still eligible for one
- for more complicated transactions done through the MNR by phone or online, such as applying to big game draws, your OC number keeps all your relevant info organized (address, previous draw success, group membership etc)

However, for fishing it's less clear that the outdoors card system is worthwhile. The only advantages to it (which also apply to hunting in addition to the ones above, I guess) are:
- if you lose your fishing license, there's a record of it so you can replace it for a replacement fee instead of the full cost of the license
- if a violator is barred from buying fishing licenses, this can be enforced by blocking their OC number in the system

I guess the other advantage of the OC card was that by having your fishing and hunting licenses as stickers affixed to the card, it actually reduced the number of documents in your wallet. That's still true if you buy 3 years' worth of licences with your OC renewal I suppose.

But for all these arguments for the OC system, I can't imagine why we have to renew it every 3 years. If they need the revenue, why not just fold it into the cost of licenses - minus the cost of needless card-printing?

So I guess my ideal would be a permanent outdoors card, to be replaced only when you change address or hunter status, and a return to the sticker license system.