Every year, Canada loses nearly 2,000 lives to a single, preventable cause. These deaths aren’t acts of God. They aren’t natural disasters. They are the direct result of human choice. The damage isn’t only measured in funerals. The economic toll is staggering: $36 billion a year, almost 1.9 percent of our GDP. That’s $947 out of every Canadian’s pocket to pay for the ambulances, the surgeries, the lost work, and the families left shattered.
When faced with such a predictable and ongoing loss of life and property, only a radical libertarian would argue that the state should do nothing. Our communities deserve protection. Continuing to allow people to engage in this reckless, destructive behaviour puts the rest of us in jeopardy. The danger is obvious. The cost is real. The solution is simple.
Which is why, clearly, we must ban driving.
The logic behind Nova Scotia’s decision to ban walking in the woods is no different. For those who find the driving example laughable or extreme, ask yourself: why? Forest fires occur every year. Some years are worse than others, just as automobile deaths rose last year. Both cause loss of life. Both cause enormous economic damage. Both are largely the result of human activity.
In both cases, the state could plausibly claim that banning the underlying activity would save lives and money.
If your instinct is to defend one ban but scoff at the other, it isn’t because the logic is different; it’s because the target is different. It’s easy to shrug when the state blocks a father from taking his kids for a walk in the park, a couple from spending their anniversary on a quiet trail, or a grandmother from wandering the same forest path she’s walked for 40 years without once setting it alight.
