IMO Canada is very anal and really over does it when it comes to "our protection" with cites. I don't think allowing some sps or live rock into Canada is going to put the country in jeopardy. The government should worry less about "hobbiest's corals" and maybe spend more time on clamping down on the Terrorists and other illegal people they welcome into our country. What will they do with these items? Confiscate them? Dispose of them? That will go a long way to help save the so called "endangered species". :sad:
A wise man once said "too many government programs fall short and are like straightening out deck chairs on the Titanic"

lol.....I like that...that sums it up pretty clear.

CITES is not intended to protect the country that is importing the resource, but rather the resource itself, as cites is an international agreement. But perhaps you are right, CITES is limited in its effectiveness and coral reefs have much greater threats then the aquarium hobby; as countries have greater threats other then natural resource issues (protection).

With this in mind CITES and legislation that protect natural resources should be abandoned. This way there will be no chairs (resources) to get in the way when the ship goes down (as humanity fighting over scarce resources most certainly would).

I don't know... Here is the governemnt statement (without the newpapers spin).

http://www.ec.gc.ca/default.asp?lang...0-C045DC876E8D

14 charges sounds pretty serious to me... Including "Four charges were laid for allegedly providing false or misleading information with respect to the imports, and for providing false or misleading statements to an officer."

When you follow the link, you have to scroll down after you choose your language of preference to get to the link.

I saw that too.

I still have the same issues though with the news articles. For the most part, they're making it sound like it's illegal to sell any of this stuff ... and people who don't know any better will think ill of the hobby in general. Whatever the outcome of this, it's a serious blow to the reputation of our hobby. :(

sorry updated!

20,000 lbs of liverock with no permit is a pretty big deal.

its to bad the dont add the genis and species of anything. makes me think that all seahorses are illegal. ETC

Personally, I don't believe anything I read in the Sun. They seem to be after catchy headlines and many articles contain errors and inaccuracies. One of the Sun's features includes a semi naked chick:lol: That alone describes the quality of the newspaper.