Most professional organizations are self regulation. Doctors, engineers lawyers etc. They have a set of professional standards they hold the membership to. They set their own fees and most important is they discipline their own members. For example lawyers who are involved in nefarious dealings are disbarred by their professional organization not the government.
The next level of organizations that seek self government are basically 'trade' organizations. These can be things like insurance brokers, teachers real estate people etc. I think trappers would fall into this category.
Government is less likely to allow full self governance to these organizations because they are not true professionals in the sense listed in the opening paragraph. Because governments really don't want to be involved in the day to day running of quasi professional organizations the are prepared to allow some autonomy to the organization. This is autonomy is usually negotiated between the Ministers office and the organization seeking self governance. I think that is what has happened here. It probably took years to get to this point. I think Gordy Klassen was involved in this process way back when.
Self governance is a good thing. It gives your organization status in that it can look after itself without the provincial government guiding it every step of the way.
With self governance comes the responsibility of being even handed, being able to successfully deal with the issues that present themselves without running to the government of the day asking for help. It also means resisting the allure of building empires.
With self governance comes the issue of standards in the industry. What minimum qualifications should the members of the organization have? Should ongoing continuing education be part of that mandate?
These are some of the questions that may arise as the ATA moves forward. There will be many more. It's just my opinion but trapping is going to face difficult questions in the near future. Being at arms length from the government gives the organization some needed distance and legitimacy.
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