Brooks calls for changes to solve guide outfitters issues

NEWS/ POLITICS — B.C. Conservative Party leader Dan Brooks is calling for a restructuring of the guide outfitting model to solve the decades-long conflict between resident hunters and commercial guide outfitters surrounding wildlife allocation.

“The outfitting model in British Columbia is broken, and taking allocation away from resident hunters to fix outfitting isn’t a fair solution,” said Brooks, a former professional outfitter who attended and spoke at a rally Monday at the B.C. Legislature.

Brooks, who was an outfitter for 14 years, maintains an office in Kamloops for his party leadership.

“It’s time to restructure outfitting so that it works with resident hunters, not against them,” said Brooks.

“Since the beginning of the outfitting industry the model has been based on arbitrarily shifting and inflating quota amongst outfitters themselves, and then slowly ratcheting up outfitter share of allocations at the expense of resident hunters to fix outfitter disparity,” he said.

“The B.C. Liberals are pandering to lobbyists and want voters and citizens to think this is just about 60 animals going to outfitters, but this is just the straw that broke the camel’s back. This is about thousands of hunting opportunities lost to B.C. resident hunters over several decades. This is our hill to die on, resident hunters have had enough.”

Brooks is putting forward a five point proposal for restructuring outfitting to work with the resident hunting community. It includes the legislation of allocation, one allocation for all species for all regions, a closing of allocation loopholes, ending foreign ownership and foreign guides, and spending more on conservation and wildlife management.