Ontario's professional Maritime Archaeology

[fullytek]

You know the Ontario marine heritage comity is just a made up club in someone's basement?

They have no power or jurisdiction

 

[Scott McWilliam]

True. Actually, only about half of them dive in the first place. Where they are getting away with outrageous behavior is with American guest researchers who make the mistake of contacting them in the first place and then are instructed to apply for an archaeological license and they in turn advise the Ontario Government on licenses. Many years ago a group of American divers had an interest in diving the Hamilton and Scourge. The solution that sounded just fine to the OMHC and the Ministery, was that this group would pay ten thousand dollars to Phil Wright who would write an archaeological report. This old idea has been recycled and if you want to dive that site or other sensitive sites they will be happy to sell you an archaeologist. However, by all accounts, they have great barbeques and parties.

 

[Bierstadt]

Well, such behavior is indeed contemptible but it is a matter primarily for the Ontario diving community to address. If you are a citizen and prepared to embrace this battle against fools, good luck.

 

[Scott McWilliam]

It is hard to speak predictively about the future. There are professional standards and ethics and this situation has got to a point where we may have reached a tipping point. I have been very impressed by the new batch of smarter younger Maritime Archaeologists in the Province and if OMHC and for that matter the Ministry want to maintain credibility it may be time for a change. This year alone I have had over twenty calls and emails regarding Scarlet's toxic behavior. A copy of the paper that started this thread hs been sent to the Minister. Greg is right they are self-appointed and no one Ontario voted for them. It is supposed to be government for the people, not the clique.

 

[Scott McWilliam]

Remedies?

I eventually did get a message back from the office of the Honourable Lisa MacLeod the Minister of Culture Heritage and Sports so hopefully, we will soon see how they are going to address this situation. It is not a good idea to be overly hopeful about this as you usually end up with a toxic response but there are a number of ways to skin a cat.

As I have mentioned the sport divers of Ontario face an ongoing effort to restrict diving on shipwrecks and there is an alternative way to address the problem The Ontario Marine Heritage Committee now boasts approximately thirty-eight members. Membership is open to the public and members pay twenty bucks a year for the privilege of being special.

The price of emancipation for Ontario sport divers is fraternity, solidarity, and twenty bucks. I am not looking for work and I am not the guy to lead the revolution but by simply getting a couple of hundred Ontario divers together joining OMHC and having a quick no-confidence vote the problem would go away very quickly. Then we have the privilege of being ignored by the government of Ontario just like the current administration, but it is one way to weed out the strokes.

 

[electric_diver]

I downloaded your paper and read it. Now I'm getting spammed by academia.edu everyday.
Its an awful spam site. Please provide an alternate way to in the future.

 

[Scott McWilliam]

Wow, thank you for bringing this to my attention. I know that when other people read my work there that they find a lot of advertising but this is the first I have heard about this spam business.

 

[shoredivr]

I do not see any venting here it is time to address the matter, it is not going to go away by itself. This is a case of speaking truth to power. Ontario is a democracy, but it is very different from where you live. Here the candidate with the most votes wins and is elected to office. One of the tasks governments are elected to do is manage resources. This includes submerged cultural resources like shipwrecks and the largest stakeholder group who utilize this resource are sport divers. The Ontario Marine Heritage Committee advises the government on this matter and the sport diving public no longer has confidence in their advice to the government with cause.
The stated purpose of the SCUBA Board is to promote and facilitate the sport of SCUBA diving and Scarlet advocates restricting diver access to dive sites. The antithesis of what this web site was designed to accomplish. I believe in the democratic process and an educated diving public will resolve the matter in their best interest and the resource and the public. I am sorry if it upsets you and your vision of political correctness but you do not get to vote here. Putting your head in a hole in the ground and hoping the problem will go away does not work. Archaeologists have been trying this approach for years.

Cannot like this enough

 

[Scott McWilliam]

I downloaded your paper and read it. Now I'm getting spammed by academia.edu everyday.
Its an awful spam site. Please provide an alternate way to in the future.

OK, I got in touch with Academia and let them know I was not happy about that but as usual, the customer service people cannot do Jack about how the App is setup. The quick solution is to mark it as spam and block the sender. I parked that paper there to be read and was not expecting it to be downloaded, it is a quick read. The main reason it is there not here is the SCUBA Board politically correct cops. Topics that some may find controversial are not particularly welcome.

 

[electric_diver]

I managed to turn off all of academia's email in their "manage emails" section. They default to having everything turned on.