A provincial government announcement on Dec. 17 confirmed the province has cancelled a scheduled 2% fishing licence increase for Ontario residents. It will come into effect in 2019, when the government will also remove the $2 service fee on the purchase of fishing licences.
In addition, the government is adding Mother’s Day and Father’s Day weekends to the list of licence-free fishing days for residents of Ontario and Canada, starting in 2019.
“We’re making it easier for Ontarians to get out on the water and enjoy the great outdoors by keeping fishing licences more affordable,” said Natural Resources Minister John Yakabuski. “Next year, whether renewing a licence or purchasing for the first time, there will be no price hike and no service fee. This will put $2.7 million back into the pockets of the hard-working people of Ontario.”
This news comes shortly after the province amended fishing regulations so veterans and active members of the Canadian Armed Forces can fish without a licence by early 2019.
For more information on fishing in Ontario, visit www.ontario.ca/fishing.
It’s the holiday season and I guess it’s better to give than receive. However as fishers, we aren’t getting too much from this announcement in fact nothing. What would be more generous would be a fiscal audit of the special purposes fund without redacted expenditures. Of special interest would how money would be spent in Region 7 to stock fish outside of Community Hatchery allocations. We have been hamstrung by not being able to re establish brook trout in UTRA waters. We have been denied the opportunity to stock conservation authority ponds for kids. Why because a new biologist wanted to study this. Two years later it hasn’t been done.