[CQ-Contest] VE Deregulation on the horizon

[Robert Kaufmann]

A few of you may know about the proposed changes that the Canadian
government has in store for Canadian amateur.  Currently, we are issued two
documents: An amateur certification document and a license to use a
transmitter.  As of April 1999,  Canadian hams will no longer have to pay a
yearly  transmitter license fee.  BUT the  Canadian government will be
deregulating the hobby, to the point where the only document issued to an
amateur operator will be a one time certificate. It will likely only
indicate : name, call and level of certification. No address, no way to
track the station. In other words, its the big kiss off. The Canadian
Government simply wants to remove all responsibility for servicing the
amateur population in any form. The implications are mind boggling. Total
deregulation is here as of 1999.

Ho, Hum .
By now,  I know that many of you are ready to hit the +ACI-delete+ACI- button. Stay
with me for a few more paragraphs.

How does this affect the contesting community ?
(1) Our  Government will no longer be responsible for assisting with RFI
complaints and Tower problems.
(2) No central accessible database of calls to indicate certification level,
privilege status ( HF or VHF only)       or whether calls are real or bogus
(3) Enforcement of bandplans, conduct on the bands etc. will be impossible
to enforce. ( Its difficult to police the bands if you don't even know how
to contact the offending station by mail or phone) The potential for chaos
is enormous.

I bring this to the attention of CQ-Contest and the contest community
because I am in the process of writing an article regarding this topic,
which will be submitted to our national magazine.  After extensive work by
our national organization (RAC) ( 4 years of meetings regarding possible
delegation of goverment's duties to RAC) the government has decided that
amateur radio is no longer worth the effort , money and manpower to
preserve. ( Even the million dollars a year it gets from present license
revenue isn't enough)  It has cut off funding . Some in the highest levels
of the Canadian Amateur Executive predict that +ACI-Amateur Radio+ACI- will have no
status in as little as 10 years. It will merely be another form of Citizen
Band Radio, left to its own devices. Legal opinions suggest that this new
document will have no legal status at all.

I bring this to your attention simply because as I do a post-mortem for our
hobby in Canada, I wonder if I ( as a contester)  have not somehow
contributed to its demise.  Although I love to contest, I question if the
hours, days, weeks and months I have spent  in front of a rig during the
past 25 years could have been better spent in trying to influence the
public, politicians and other amateurs to the dangers of complacency.

A good example is the reaction of many Canadian hams to this news. For many
of them, their biggest concern is how it will affect the QSL bureau +ACEAIQAh-
Talk about short sighted +ACEAIQ-

As much as I loathe the +ACI-shack on belt+ACI- VHF ( No-code) only types, it is
THEY, not me who have been much more in the public eye of late. Sequestering
yourself away on some  HF mega-antenna farm, a deserted island or in your
own basement does little to influence the public and politicians as to the
+ACI-worth+ACI- of our hobby. Sorry, I don't buy the +ACI-emergency preparedness
argument+ACI-, that is a ruse and we all know it. Technology offers much more
reliable means of communication, especially with the advent of satellite
linked telephones. There may be an occasional +ACI-mega-disaster+ACI- in which we
play a token role, but it is not the significant role that we once occupied.

One of  the basic tenets of the Amateur Code is that he/she is +ACI-balanced+ACI-. I
wonder if, in the zeal for that extra QSO, bigger antenna, more mults, we
have forgotten or neglected our obligations to publicize, protect and defend
the hobby. How much value do thousands of Contest QSOs have in the eyes of
government or the public ?

To those of you reading this outside Canada who think that this does not
apply to you, think very carefully. No one in my country ever imagined that
there would come a day when such deregulation could occur.

One last attempt will be made in the 2 months to persuade politicians to
abandon the course. Should this fail, the only course left to Canadian
amateurs  would be to try to sue the government  for abrogation of its legal
responsibilities to the radio spectrum. RAC finds itself ( 8,000 members out
of a total of 45,000 hams) so short of funds that a last ditch legal effort
is financially impossible.  I truly fear for the future and I see no way out
of our apparent destiny.  Try not to let this happen where you live.

73

Rob VE4GV




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