Trapped in Suburbia…

The East Elgin Sportsman’s Association recently held a provincial match for the Ontario International Practical Shooting Confederation. Competitors from across Canada – and as far as France – came to compete in the match and take part in a fundraiser run by the association. A number of students from the nearby East Elgin Secondary School also volunteered to help with the event.

The match raised almost $5000 which was earmarked for the school’s drama department. This amount is in addition to previous donations totaling $5500 over the last two years.

There’s just one small snag… the director of the Thames District School Board isn’t letting the school accept the donation.

As reported in the London Free Press and the Toronto Star:

“I do not feel comfortable accepting money from any organization associated with guns,” Bill Tucker said.

Mr. Tuckers position raises a few questions.

First, on what grounds does he feel the need to reject the donation? Certainly it couldn’t be because of a safety concern. The match was held at a federally approved shooting range, was overseen by directors and safety officers of the IPSC Ontario organization, and saw both national and international competitors compete without incident. Indeed, I was unable to uncover any evidence to suggest that the East Elgin Shooting Association (EESA) has ever had an incident on their range. In fact, the EESA range is also used for training by the Ontario Provincial Police Tactical Unit, the Windsor Police, and the Ontario Police College.

I suspect that the donation was rejected strictly on the basis of Mr. Tucker’s personal beliefs regarding firearms. He certainly fails to give us any logic for his decision.

That begs the question: Whose interests does Mr. Tucker represent? It doesn’t appear to be the students of East Elgin Secondary School. If he had the students’ interests in mind he would hardly turn down a significant donation. Especially one in a relatively rural area that is no doubt under even greater ‘cost savings’ pressures than schools in more populous locations. In fact, its pretty obvious that the only thing Mr. Tucker seems to care about is Mr. Tucker’s delicate sensibilities. Then again, when you’re raking in nearly $140,000 taxpayers dollars as your salary $5,000 may not seem like such a big deal.

John Evers, a representative of the East Elgin Sportsman’s Association, father of a student at the East Elgin Secondary School, and organizer of the event said it best:

The kids are the only ones hurting here. They’re not getting the funding they need and deserve.

I think its pretty obvious that what our often overworked and underfunded school systems need is more parents like John Evers and less bureaucrats like Bill Tucker.

**** UPDATE ****

While doing some additional research on the East Elgin Sportsman Association I found they were the recipients of a grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation in 2003-2004:

East Elgin Sportmen’s Association
$21,000 over two months to construct accessible washroom facilities in the indoor range facility. This venue will host 10 events as part of the 2004 Can Am Police and Firefighters Games, which will bring great exposure to the area.

If the Trillium Foundation – which is responsible for grants to historical societies, theatre, music, hospitals and more – thinks that EESA is a worthwhile organization that should receive a grant in order to help make its facility accessible to disabled visitors then who is Bill Tucker to decide that EESA can’t give back to the community?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 24th, 2008 at 10:09 pm and is filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.