The Disastrous Environmental Consequences of Canada's Insane and Corrupt Policy of Near Universal Public Land Ownership

The other day we argued that Canada's carbon tax should be applied to the capture and sequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. For example, we suggested that a tax of 22 cents (US) should be applied to the price of a litre of gas to cover the cost of capturing and sequestering the carbon dioxide emitted on combustion of the gas. Instead, however, the Government of Canada imposes a carbon tax on major Canadian industries, thereby diminishing their international competitiveness, while using the  revenue to send cheques to low-income persons on the assumption, no doubt, that the cheques will provide an incentive to vote Liberal at the next Federal Parliamentary election.

Thus, while encouraging certain industries to limit their carbon emissions, the carbon tax does nothing to discourage carbon emissions at the consumer level, for example, by those who use a two-plus ton pickup truck for their solitary and load-free commute to the office. Moreover, none of the tax collected in the name of limiting atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions is used to capture emitted carbon. 

But what reveals most clearly the absolute contempt with which governments in Canada, both Federal and Provincial, regard the public's concern about carbon emissions and climate warming is that as near monopoly owners (89%) of the nation's land base, they exercise control of the forest with near total incompetence and irresponsibility. The consequence is not only massive forest fires year after year resulting not only in per capita carbon emissions that can exceed the global average ten times, as they have done already this year, but a massive loss in the value that could be derived from Canadian forest lands that extend to almost one tenth of the World's total.

Bur rather than repeat here what has been well said elsewhere, I refer the reader to an excellent article in in Policy Magazine which lays bare the evidence of the incompentence and irresponsibility in the management of Canada's publicly owned forest lands: 

Canada's Largest Polluters Are Not Who You Think They Are