Considering the large number of small communities in Canada either in the boreal zones or at least adjacent to it, that sounds like a monumental undertaking. Frankly, with increasingly hot and dry summers, and in some parts of the country, even very dry winters (huge problem in areas like south and central coast of BC), there likely is no real solution other than to get used to smoke filled springs, summers and falls. We’ve now entered the mitigation stage.
I saw the regrouped band about six years ago. I miss Doug, but the new singer did a decent job.
But not invulnerable. Water is a growing problem in the Prairies, and as we’re seeing from drought conditions in Southern Alberta, Canada is not immune from the problems we’re seeing in the US.
Canada has over 360 million hectares of forest. The notion that controlled burns are some sort of solution seems a bit absurd.
And nothing is going to fix the fact that in some parts of the country, it looks like wild fire season is going to be six months long (that certainly seems to be the case now along the South Coast of BC). With long stretches of hot dry weather, where ignition becomes almost inevitable, I think we’re going to have to accept that annual number and intensity of wild fires is going to increase no matter how many resources we throw at forest management.
So long as the Liberals and Conservatives think there’s a chance they can win a majority, they’ll stave off any attempts to move to a proportional system. It’s interesting that after the last election, I started seeing Conservative supporters, particularly in the West, start talking about electoral reform.
I don’t know how many more hung parliaments we’re going to need before the major parties give up the ghost. But there won’t be any support from the Bloc, because a PR system would likely harm them. That pretty much leaves the NDP as the sole major Federal party that actually supports electoral reform. Who knows, maybe if the Liberals squeak through with another minority the NDP may be able to force the issue, but I’m not holding out much hope.
It’s the only game the Liberal and Tory strategists know; swapping majorities with periods of hung parliament instability in between. It is possible that the CAS agreement with the NDP suggests a change in direction for the Liberals, but it’s one thing to exchange some goodies in return for maintaining confidence, and quite another to move to a PR voting system that would make formal coalitions all but inevitable (as happened in New Zealand).