The Nanny State Made Hiking Illegal in Canada

Canada’s overregulation comes at the price of our freedom.

Oh Canada! The land of breathtaking nature, crystal lakes, and the Canadian Rockies. Too bad you won’t be able to experience it much longer. As of August 5, the province of Nova Scotia is banning travel and activities in its forests due to a rising concern of climate change and an increase in prevalence of wildfires. Under the ban, people are barred from hiking, camping, fishing, driving vehicles through the woods, and using forest trails. Still feeling like taking an early morning constitutional? You will be fined $25,000 for your civil disobedience.

“We are restricting travel and activities that really aren’t necessary… hiking, camping, fishing, and the use of vehicles in the woods are not permitted. Trail systems through woods are off limits… This situation sucks… I know it’s inconvenient… but we have to stay out of the woods. It’s a small price to pay to avoid the kind of devastation we saw from the wildfires in 2023,” said Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston.

Sucks indeed. The local government’s justifications for these “safety” restrictions are slowly and steadily eroding people’s liberties to partake in the most basic of activities, like simply walking in the outdoors.

New Brunswick, Canada has recently joined in on Nova Scotia’s hiking ban. However, NB Premier Susan Holt has taken it one step further: people are forbidden to go into the woods because they might get hurt, and emergency responders won’t be able to save them.

“If you’re out there walking in the woods and you break your leg, we’re not going to come and get you,” said Holt.

While some may think these are reasonable precautions taken by the government for the ‘greater good’ of the Canadian people, the reality depicts a different story—one where climate alarmism, fearmongering, and government overreach create an environment where your individual rights and liberties are swept aside for whatever the government wants in the moment.

Fearmongering Expands Government’s Powers

Canadian politicians and think tanks alike incessantly warn of the dangers posed by ‘man-made climate change,’ including the heightened risk of wildfires through Canada’s many wooded areas. The Canadian Climate Institute, a government-funded research organization, explicitly states that, “[a]ccelerating climate change, largely from the burning of fossil fuels, makes wildfires bigger, hotter, and more frequent,” and “[o]ur research finds that to keep Canadians safe, governments must play both defence and offence—protecting people and ecosystems while accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels to limit further heating.”

Apart from camping bans and regulating outdoor walks, another way the Canadian government is fighting climate change is by spending $14.4 million in taxpayer dollars on 17 projects to “empower young Canadians to address climate change,” and to prepare themselves for the pending “climate emergency.”

There’s just one problem: the government’s frenzy over “man-made climate change” is simply a trojan horse in its attempt to expand its authority over citizens’ private lives.

According to Premier Houston himself: “Most wildfires are caused by human activity, so to reduce the risk, we’re keeping people out of the woods until conditions improve.” In fact, the most common and widely experienced source of wildfires is not the climate, but various human activities, chief among them being intentional acts of arson. For example, it is estimated that 40 percent of wildfires that affect British Columbia in an average year are human-induced. Meanwhile, in the US, around 85 percent of the nearly 100,000 wildland fires that affect North America every year are caused by human activity, according to data from the National Park Service. A far cry from the impeding climate change disaster government officials want people to believe. The truth of the matter is, that these hiking bans won’t stop arsonists from intentionally setting fires, or prevent lighting strikes—the source of nearly half of all Canadian wildfires.

Unfortunately for Canadians, the facts won’t save them. Getting arrested for unauthorized hiking could land them larger fines and more jail time than arsonists who deliberately start fires in Canadian forests. It’s not about safety, it’s always about control.

Restricting Liberties is Canada’s Black Letter Law, and Won’t Go Away Anytime Soon

Under Canada’s Forests Act, a Minister may at any time, “set aside for any period of time a restricted travel zone in any area of woods upon which no person shall enter for the purpose of traveling, camping, fishing or picnicking, or any other purpose, without a travel permit… A forest travel permit may be cancelled or suspended at any time by the Minister, a conservation officer or other person authorized by the Minister.” You read that right. The Canadian government can, at any time, restrict your ability to go hiking or camping, and can obligate you to purchase a travel permit to do so. After all, walking in the woods is a privilege, not a codified right or liberty.

This shouldn’t be surprising. Canada has recently been more heavy handed when it comes to compelling people to follow its restrictions—including its more illiberal laws. During the trucker convoy protests of 2022, thousands of truckers and their supporters peacefully protested the Trudeau government’s Covid vaccine mandates. How did the government react to these protests? It froze their bank accounts, canceled credit cards, and handed out multi-year criminal sentences, simply for exercising ‘free’ speech.

Since then, there has been no backtracking, redirection, or even an apology from the Canadian government for stifling its citizens’ democratic rights. In fact, it has only doubled down, expanding its hate speech laws which threaten prison time for inciting “hatred,” a term which is loosely defined, if at all.

Canada shows us what happens when a people are overdependent on an ever-expanding bureaucratic government. What may start as free transportation, childcare services, and food assistance, can quickly degrade into hate speech laws and restrictions on where you can walk outside. Once you give an inch of your civil liberties away, there’s no telling how much a government will take in turn.

As economist Friedrich A. Hayek said: “The chief evil is unlimited government, and nobody is qualified to wield unlimited power.”