The 2015 Ontario Fishing Regulations have been released by the MNR

[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.