Please School Me on Getting Hunting License Online Ontario

thegazelle said:
I also already have an outdoors card for fishing. Do I get issued another one upon bringing the certificate to service ontario?.
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You will be given a temporary licence and then a new outdoors card will be mailed to you which will have your fishing and small game details listed on the back.
 
thegazelle said:
I very much appreciate this thread. I have had my PAL for almost 20 years and now wished that I had gotten my hunting license sooner.

I generally prefer the in person experience but at three times the cost of online for the same outcome I was wondering if there is any value in paying extra for the instructor led training. Assume I will get printed book. I see on the available in person courses there is a lot of space available. I know nothing beats hands on experience and wanted to know for anyone who has recently taken the course in person whether there were any hands on practical aspect in the course or was it pretty much discussing the subject matter in the manual exclusively? If it was just going over the printed book I may as well do it online and perhaps order a printed manual if it is available separately.

I also already have an outdoors card for fishing. Do I get issued another one upon bringing the certificate to service ontario?

Thanks in advance for any feedback.
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Without sounding like a smart ass, it will depend on your instructor. Previous experiences before the current course format have no bearing on the current course.

The instructors now must use a powerpoint presentation that mirrors the online and printed student manual. If your instructor just deals with the powerpoint word for word, then there is no advantage.

If your instructor uses the powerpoint presentation as a baseline with additional material, hunting gear and practical examples, then it there is an advantage to doing it in person. Some people do not do well with online learning. As I said earlier, if you want to meet the minimum requirements to obtain a license, do the online course. If you want to learn about hunting, take it with an instructor.

Why the differential in price? Good question. The online course revenues go directly to the government. Instructors have to buy the course materials (which includes the manual you get to keep), pay room rental, pay for liability insurance (I have posted this about a year ago when OFAH dropped instructors insurance), and then get charged by OFAH for each exam that they administer. This equates to the instructor entering in all of the required information which is uploaded to the MNR, and then getting charged a fee for doing their administrative work. Oh, and what is left over, pays for their time and effort in setting up and delivering the course.

One last thing to remember - with an instructor, there is at least a level of verification of who is doing the course. With the online course, there is no verification of who is actually doing the online exam. Current and future hunters should see the safety issue in this....
 
Chas said:
Without sounding like a smart ass, it will depend on your instructor. Previous experiences before the current course format have no bearing on the current course.

The instructors now must use a powerpoint presentation that mirrors the online and printed student manual. If your instructor just deals with the powerpoint word for word, then there is no advantage.

If your instructor uses the powerpoint presentation as a baseline with additional material, hunting gear and practical examples, then it there is an advantage to doing it in person. Some people do not do well with online learning. As I said earlier, if you want to meet the minimum requirements to obtain a license, do the online course. If you want to learn about hunting, take it with an instructor.

Why the differential in price? Good question. The online course revenues go directly to the government. Instructors have to buy the course materials (which includes the manual you get to keep), pay room rental, pay for liability insurance (I have posted this about a year ago when OFAH dropped instructors insurance), and then get charged by OFAH for each exam that they administer. This equates to the instructor entering in all of the required information which is uploaded to the MNR, and then getting charged a fee for doing their administrative work. Oh, and what is left over, pays for their time and effort in setting up and delivering the course.

One last thing to remember - with an instructor, there is at least a level of verification of who is doing the course. With the online course, there is no verification of who is actually doing the online exam. Current and future hunters should see the safety issue in this....
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Thank you very much! This is extremely helpful. Even before covid, I have generally preferred in person anything. Our company used to send use these CBTs - book of CDs to run through for "training". I hated it - many companies don't want to pay for their employees to be off for a week or more in a dedicated classroom environment. But going through IT certification exams 25 years ago - you really see the difference between those who had instructor training and those who just memorized things online and the difference came out practically when the knowledge was needed to be translated into what to actually do at work.
 
Does anyone know where you can get a PRINTED copy of the Ontario Hunting Regulations summary? I am aware it is available online as a PDF.

I just went to two (2) Service Ontarios which normally can issue the hunting licenses. Both of them said they don't have copies of the Hunting Regulations Summary but one can go online to review. I said yes, I know that but I am looking for a pre-printed copy and rather not have to print 100+ pages of it at home (printer low on ink).

Is there any other place where we can get these other than Service Ontario?
 
Chas said:
Without sounding like a smart ass, it will depend on your instructor. Previous experiences before the current course format have no bearing on the current course.

The instructors now must use a powerpoint presentation that mirrors the online and printed student manual. If your instructor just deals with the powerpoint word for word, then there is no advantage.

If your instructor uses the powerpoint presentation as a baseline with additional material, hunting gear and practical examples, then it there is an advantage to doing it in person. Some people do not do well with online learning. As I said earlier, if you want to meet the minimum requirements to obtain a license, do the online course. If you want to learn about hunting, take it with an instructor.

Why the differential in price? Good question. The online course revenues go directly to the government. Instructors have to buy the course materials (which includes the manual you get to keep), pay room rental, pay for liability insurance (I have posted this about a year ago when OFAH dropped instructors insurance), and then get charged by OFAH for each exam that they administer. This equates to the instructor entering in all of the required information which is uploaded to the MNR, and then getting charged a fee for doing their administrative work. Oh, and what is left over, pays for their time and effort in setting up and delivering the course.

One last thing to remember - with an instructor, there is at least a level of verification of who is doing the course. With the online course, there is no verification of who is actually doing the online exam. Current and future hunters should see the safety issue in this....
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Another benefit of "In person" is that you can chat with people and potentially get contact info for the future

That being said, having online as an option is something that I hope stays. I delayed getting my license by ~20 yrs because of scheduling issues. (I literality served food to the people taking the courses at the RA center and my boss said that if I took that time off I could expect to lose a lot more hours) Had online been available I would have had it MUCH sooner.
 
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