Canadian Couple Charged $5k For Finding 400-Year-Old Skeleton

First time accepted submitter Rebecka Schumann writes "Ontario couple Ken Campbell and Nicole Sauve said a recent fence installation led them to discover what is being labeled a historical find. Sauve, who said the duo originally believed the skeleton to be from bones of an animal, called the Ontario Provincial Police to investigate; Forensic Anthropologist Michael Spence confirmed the bones were that of an aboriginal woman who died at age 24 between the late 1500s to the early 1600s. In spite of reporting their find and Spence's evaluation, Suave and Campbell were told they were required to hire an archeologist to assess their property at their own expense under Ontario's Funeral, Burial and Cremation Services Act. The act, which requires evaluation for all properties found to house human remains, has the Canadian couple stuck with a big bill."

Comments

Re:Don't Do The Dig ...

[Solandri]

I *slightly* disagree. It's entirely appropriate that construction companies be required to preserve historic artifacts. What's not appropriate is that *particular* construction companies be so required. That's, as mentioned, counter productive, and places the burden on those who are conscientious.

Costs should be borne by the beneficiaries. If it's the public which is going to benefit from an archeological find, then it's the public which should bear the cost, not the construction company. It is not just inappropriate, but also immoral and dysfunctional to require a non-beneficiary to bear the costs of a situation they did not create.

Once you start making someone other than the beneficiary bear the cost, you get into all sorts of trouble. Whether it be bailouts for bankers who took too many risks, or people living perennially on welfare. The moment cost is decoupled from benefit, you can lose all sense of scale between cost and benefit. The beneficiaries don't bear the cost so it becomes a game of seeing how much they can get away with, and those bearing the cost start to get upset at taxation without representation and threaten to revolt.

Having the beneficiary bear the cost also makes the cost-benefit analysis crystal clear. If each discovered archeological site costs $5 million to process, but only yields $1 million worth of cultural preservation, then clearly the processing method needs to be refined to lower its cost. If it's the public footing the bill, then the government agency paying for it has an incentive to streamline the processing and their costs. If the construction companies are footing the bill, then there's no incentive for the government agency to do any streamlining.

That said, I'm not sure it should be legal to sell or rent properties lacking a tornado shelter in areas where a tornado is likely. You may not be able to install it due to lack of finances, but this doesn't mean you should be able to transfer the problem to someone else. Perhaps sale should be allowed if the purchaser signed a clear statement in 14 point type saying (approximately) "I understand that the state believes living in this place is unsafe due to the lack of a tornado shelter.".

Despite the recent news, tornadoes and especially injuries and deaths from tornadoes are actually pretty rare. If tornadoes kill 75 people per year on average, and you require all ~50 million residences in the tornado-prone areas to build $5000 shelters, and the average home lasts 50 years, you're mandating a cost of ($5000 per home * 50 million homes / (50 years * 75 people/year) ) = $67 million per life saved.

Given that the lifetime productivity of an average person is only $2-$3 million, a tornado shelter requirement would result in a net decrease in the standard of living. i.e. About 22-33 lifetimes' worth of productivity is being spent to save one life, instead of being used on other things which could save a lot more lives.

Renting is, however, a separate problem. Landlords have a long history of totally ignoring the safety of their tennants, so I don't think they should be granted ANY slack.

If you've actually been a landlord, you would also know that it's equally true that renters have a long history of totally ignoring the integrity and safety of the landlord's property. I've seen everything from tenants painting over a mold problem caused by a leak they didn't want to bother to fix or report, to cutting structural beams and "repairing" them in an unsound manner, to adding plumbing and electrical wiring which didn't comply with code without telling the landlord, to just plain leaving a mess when they leave which costs the landlord far more than the security deposit to dispose of in a way which complies with local environmental regulations.

Yes there are bad