Quote:
Originally Posted by brendan's dad
Thank you for the response. I have to say I am a little surprise on simplicity of the APOS election process if that is how it occurs. It sounds more like elections for a local minor hockey association as opposed to a governing body of an industry.
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And here lies the issue with APOS ! They aren’t really a governing body although they are treated as such in some cases.
What they actually are is an administrator of the allocations required to outfit non residents in Alberta and an association for its members. Which unlike other jurisdictions are required to be members whether they want the “benefits” or not.
If a law is broken by a member they are charged by F&W at the direction of or on behalf of the crown. They go to court just like anybody else and there’s an outcome good or bad. Now if convicted you are contacted by APOS and a review takes place of your actions, and you’re accessed an additional fine or disciplinary action by the association.
This is where things get “grey” because people assume APOS should step in and take all the allocations from the offender like an angry master and the outfitter then goes bankrupt and hides his head in shame.
In reality it’s very hard for an association to do this, and other members likely don’t want to see huge expenditures going towards civil court cases. There’s also the issue with who decides exactly how steep the internal penalty is ? Does a technicality warrant loss of use ? Is there a 3 strike rule ? Does APOS support the crown even if the evidence is questionable regardless of the situation? Very slippery slope that one !!
What we’ve seen lately from the crown/judges are huge fines and suspensions. A $80,000 fine and 22 year ban on anything to do with hunting/outfittting hurts even the biggest outfitters out there, I promise you that.
In my opinion we should be depending on the judicial system to take care of these issues, not tasking APOS with it.
Next door we have GOABC who is a very powerful advocate for us, but they have nothing to do with administrating how the government handles the outfitting industry. And in my opinion that’s exactly how it should be !
If quotas need to be changed, they’re changed by the government. If you have an issue with it then you ask your association for help. If you’re convicted of an offence the government takes care of who can continue to operate or not, there’s no middle man. It’s way more cut and dry !