“We, to-day, of this generation, are seeing the last of the free trappers; a race of men, who, in passing, will turn the last page in the story of true adventure on this continent, closing forever the book of romance in Canadian History. The forest cannot much longer stand before the conquering march of modernity, and soon we shall witness the vanishing of a mighty wilderness.

And the last Frontiersman, its offspring, driven back further and further towards the North into the far-flung reaches where are only desolation and barrenness, must, like the forest that evolved him, bow his head to the inevitable and perish with it. And he will leave behind him only his deserted, empty trails, and the ashes of his dead camp fires, as landmarks for the oncoming millions. And with him will go his friend the Indian to be a memory of days and a life that are past beyond recall.”

- Grey Owl, in “The Men of the Last Frontier”

Grey Owl, a Scot posing as a Native Canadian, canoed and hiked deep into the wilderness first as a trapper and then as one of Canada’s first environmentalists. He was one of the first to capture an essential part of the Canadian character. He understood that Canadians are offspring of “Nature as it was since the Beginning; all creation down the eons of unmeasured time, brooding in ineffable calm, infinite majesty, and a breathless and unutterable silence.” From the First Peoples to the leaf on our flag, Canada and Canadians are intimately tied to the vast spaces and wild beauty, the ‘infinite majesty, and breathless and unutterable silence’ that is our first, our natural heritage.

And yet, today Canada ranks as one of the worst environmental performers in the OECD. Our current government held back global climate negotiations in Bali, we supply some of the dirtiest oil in the world, and we consume ridiculous amounts of water and energy. Our government has demonstrated time and again that they will maintain a strict head-in-sand policy when it comes to the environment. Instead, they play short-term politics with our heritage and our future, and make great show of a little regulation and a lot of big cardboard cheque handovers that make for good press conferences but bad policy.

And while the current government plays a poor imitation of the American “if we say ‘Liberal Tax’ enough, eventually it’ll sound true” game, the clock ticks, and Canada’s future fades with it. While we are focused on lobbying American policy-makers to import the oil that’s created one of the only manmade objects visible from space, other countries are implementing the policy frameworks that will make them the leaders whose trash we’ll have to carry in the next decades. When climate change and other environmental challenges become too big for even the most oil-funded of our leaders to ignore, we’ll be left with the aftermath of capital projects that are no longer viable, and with a long list of products to buy from the Swedes.

If we do not put policies in place now that will incent development of ‘green’ technologies, we won’t develop them! Instead, we’ll be left buying our wind power turbines, our solar panels, and all of the thousands of supporting and offshoot technologies from countries that have put these incentives in place. Cutting a cheque for R&D here and there is not a systematic policy, it’s a one-time project that creates no incentive to invent for a market that still favours bitumen over the sun. The Conservatives of all people should know the value of a free market, and should put policies in place that incent what’s wanted, disincent what’s not, and then let the market do its thing.

So, as has been proposed (although communicated poorly) and supported by many people from economists to ecologists, the way forward for Canada is to put a price on carbon and reduce income tax. This will be revenue-neutral for the government, will reduce the centrally-planned and unpredictable nature of a cap and trade system, and will create a cost on what we don’t want (carbon), while further removing inefficiencies from what we do want (income).

If we create the right incentives, Canada will be in a position to supply the natural resources that will continue to be in demand, but will also be able to lead in the high value added industries that will transform those raw materials into useful, green, sustainable products. We will remember that Canada’s vast resources are not just under the ground in the form of oily sand, but also in the wind and sun of our skies, in the clean water of our lakes and rivers, and in the ingenuity and ecological mindset of our people.

Grey Owl was a visionary in many respects, but I hope he turns out wrong. With intelligent policy, popular support, industry commitment, and the vitality of its people, Canada’s natural heritage can be more than ‘a memory of days and a life that are past beyond recall.’ The world is undergoing a shift, and it seems to me that there are few people more equipped to lead it than those who have spent their lives hiking the Rockies, paddling the Great Lakes, staring into the starry prairie skies, and admiring the brilliant autumn red of the maple leaf.

¶ 6:17 PM