On November 10th the newly elected Liberal government finally released a long awaited report on the results of that cancellation: a report the former government had kept under wraps since August.
 
A special Nuisance Bear Committee, set up in 2002 to study the ballooning black bear population, recommended the reinstatement of the hunt. In early December the Hon. David Ramsay, announced that the hunt would not be reinstated.

To understand the hunt cancellation, and the problems caused by that action, we have to go back before 1999 and examine the path that led to the government's decision.

Robert Schad is listed by Canadian Business Magazine as the 45th richest man in Canada. He likes bears… all kinds of bears… but in particular he likes Ontario black bears. He and his minions struggled against public opinion for many years trying to get the province's bear hunt cancelled. They bombarded the public with radio, billboards and television advertising claiming the bears were endangered, they were being killed to extinction for their gall bladders, and hunting black bears over bait was unethical.

His plea was totally emotional and had little to do with truth. The fact that the spring hunt was no threat at all to the healthy black bear population of Ontario (estimated to be at least 100,000), was of little or no importance to Schad and his doomsayers.

A group of like-minded supporters, including the Animal Alliance of Canada, the Federation of Ontario Naturalists, the World Wildlife Fund and, of course the Schad Foundation met, named themselves the Bear Alliance, and planned a concerted effort to force the cancellation of the bear hunt. (Later the Federation of Ontario Naturalists withdrew from the Bear Alliance when it realized the whole effort had little to do with conservation.)

The Bear Alliance tried many different heart-wrenching messages to get the general public on their side and pressure the government to cancel the hunt. But nothing seemed to work - the apathetic public just didn't seem to believe, or care, that Ontario's bears were endangered and the hunt was unethical.

But finally, accidentally, they hit upon a winner. In 1996 the Alliance began a poster campaign claiming bear cubs were being orphaned because their mothers were being killed for their gall bladders. The campaign wasn't particularly successful.

But some bright light realized that orphaned cubs did have an appeal to urban women in southern Ontario (where the only bears are on television.) So the Bear Alliance changed its strategy and began claiming that 30% of the bears shot in the spring were nursing females and the hunt regularly orphaned more than 1,000 bear cubs.

The government waved them off and refused to discuss cancellation of the hunt.

Robert Schad almost quit in frustration.

But at the last minute he decided to cough up another $200,000 and left it to the Bear Alliance to devise a strategy to force the government to comply with his emotional demands.