Just reading this today on another Dive forum. Apparently there is an idea being tossed around in the government (who else?) that all divers in Ontario should be registered and receive a Government issued "license" to dive in Ontario. Registration is apparently as simple as going to the issuing office, showing your C card, probably paying a fee (most likely an annual fee) and receiving your card.
The rationale behind the registration is to collect information about diving in Ontario in general, and more specifically about targeted sites.
To achieve these goals, divers would be required to apply for a special sticker or tag for their new diver licence before diving on certain, high profile dive sites (Tobermory, Kingston, Brockville, etc). The tag would be for a specific period of time (2 days, 1 week or some such limitation) after which the diver would complete and submit a mandatory report. The questions on the report would include such things as visibility, condition of the wreck, marine life seen, number of other divers present, etc, and the answers would be used to create summaries and eventually reports. The tag would possibly be at no cost to the licenced diver.
Enforcement of the program would fall to the usual overworked agencies (OPP, Coast Guard, etc) and penalties would range from a fine to loss of diving priveleges in Ontario or to possible jail time for serious or repeat offences. Divers could be stopped at any time and would need to show their current ODRIP Licence and the proper sticker on the back if they were diving on one of the restricted sites. As with other regulated sports, one would not have to be in the water to be classified as a diver. Near the water and in possession of diving equipment would substantiate a search and possible charges.
Personally, I haven't been able to find anything on this on any searches yet, but I'll keep an eye out and post more if it comes available. Not sure if I like this idea from the standpoint of where it will eventually end up. The stated cause is just, but we all know where the governments good intentions go.
the quoted parts came from
Scuba 2000 forums
Topic: Re: Mandatory Registration for divers in Ontario? (Read 2283 times)