New License Renewal Question?

[DarekG]

Hi all,

Went to get my license and a bear tag for the season today and had two odd things happen.

Firstly they were unable to give me a license until I had confirmed my BC residency with Services BC. Apparently this is new and they are "randomly" targeting people for it in BC for any BC Services claims such as hunting, fishing licenses, etc. however when I drove to the local office it was full of confused hunters. I was also confused as I had just filled out this stupid provincial government's spec tax paperwork confirming that I am a resident here and my primary residency. On top of that I had just filed and received my income tax return from the CRA. Government at work.

Secondly - When I was renewing my license they asked something I was never asked before "Do you hunt with a bow?" and I answered "Maybe." I'm just curious why they are collecting this information. The tinfoil hat part of me is wondering if they are collecting the percentage of bow hunters versus rifle hunters to further the anti-firearm sentiment by being able to say "Look, you don't need guns for hunting as 40% of BC resident hunters use bows." or something along those lines.

Is this new? Has anyone else noticed or have I just not been paying enough attention when I renew each year?

[huntinnewbie]

Both my husband and I received the letter stating we had to confirm our BC residency. I thought everyone had to, not randomly. Must be renewed every 3 years. Just did mine yesterday.

[303savage]

Interesting They sent a letter to a B.C. address to ask if your a B.C. resident.

[huntinnewbie]

Interesting They sent a letter to a B.C. address to ask if your a B.C. resident.

Haha, I missed the irony in that, never thought of it that way.

[Wild one]

The Bowhunting question is very old and the purpose was to collect data on the number of Bowhunters in BC. The reason for this is it shows possible demand for archery opportunities. Unfortunately the ? Is rarely asked because it’s not mandatory so the data is not there. Bowhunting association actually proposed a small fee for Bowhunting so proper data was collected.

The proposed Bowhunting license was opposed so never happened and oddly enough the opposition was not by Bowhunters. Some thought the data collected to count Bowhunters was good enough.

Don’t worry it’s not an anti firearms thing or even new for that matter

[jdmck]

applied for my lisence and bear tag online Monday recieved the tag in the mail thurs no questions no issues