Dear Prime Minister Trudeau and a second senior Canadian government official I cannot name and refuse to look up.
I am writing as a concerned parent of two primary school children. Canadian schools are no longer safe. There is an epidemic lurking in the verdant forests. Slinking across the prairies. Creeping around the coasts. Canada is overdue on taking the simple common sense safety measures every other developed nation on earth has figured out.
I am, as should be obvious, writing about coyotes near playgrounds.
Did you know that coyotes attacks are now the number one cause of death for Canadian children? They aren’t. Not even close. But if that were true could you imagine how urgent this problem would be?
Nonetheless, Canadian school kids are forced to endure the mental trauma of lockdown drills in the event of a coyote sighting. You might think just going indoors would solve this right? Coyotes can’t open a door. Well yeah, that’s kind of exactly what happens. But still, it’s leaving psychological scars to just live with this existential threat. There have even been false alarms triggered by a weird looking coyote/fox/canine breed nobody can readily identify.
Rather than enact reforms to stop this, Canada actually produces an official information kit for Parent Advisory Councils on the coyote menace. Its plastered on school buildings as a warning. How can we expect our children to learn in an environment like this?
This runs counter to everything we know about nurturing pedagogic environments. Encouraging students to throw rocks? Yell? What about preteens who can’t use a deep voice?
We even had a warning when trying to attend a Jewish Federation Rosh Hashanah event. See this paragraph from an advisory email.
Coyotes are antisemitic is the point.
Our neighbours have figured this problem out. The United States has the right to hunt, the right to self defence, and individual liberty and freedom. But there is no problem there with coyotes in schools.
Why?
Because Congress isn’t bankrolled by the National Coyote Association (NCA) pouring millions of dollars into electing conservatives to block coyote safety laws. Elected leaders aren’t pandering to NCA scorecards and soliciting independent expenditures.
For example, in the United States road runners are deployed to tease and torment coyotes. The Acme product the coyote is using to capture the road runner fails. Rocket powered roller skates. Giant rubber bands. Earthquake pills. To keep kids safe.
But what do we hear every time we demand action on this problem? The same tired excuses.
The only thing that stops a hungry coyote is a hungrier coyote.
There is even an effort to give teachers trained coyotes to use in the event of another coyote attack. Ridiculous. If more coyotes made everything safer Canada would be the safest country on earth since we have more coyotes than people in Canada.. Instead, we’re 11th.
Criminal coyotes won’t follow coyote laws. Well then, I guess we shouldn’t have any laws then? I mean bad drivers don’t follow laws but we still have licensing, registration, stop lights, and speed limits
Mental health is the problem. I don’t doubt there are some coyotes that aren’t mentally fit to terrorize children. But are we too believe Canada is the ONLY country with mental health issues? And no other developed nations live with this fear. Yet whenever something is proposed to fund more mental health services it gets voted down as too much big government spending that will raise taxes.
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees coyote liberty. Judicial precedent has established plenty of rules that would preserve liberty while protecting public safety.
Thoughts and prayers. Great thanks. If it was just thoughts I’d be angry but you tacked on prayers so we’re good.
Canada had a prohibition on the most dangerous types of coyotes in the 90s and guess what? The rate of coyote attacks cratered. Then the law lapsed, wasn’t renewed and attacks spiked. In fact, decades ago, even the NCA supported simple coyote reform laws that protected public safety. But now its descended into right wing militarism (and bankruptcy) putting the profits of coyote producers ahead of people.
I eagerly await your reply.
Meep Meep,
Canadian PACs
