Who should own the rights to natural resources on crown land?
- Thread starter Machjo
- Start date
In Ont. the general populace has free access to crown land. You can go there, hike, camp, fish, stay for a few days, as long as you don't construct any permanent dwelling or the like.........
Why do you believe it should be "privatized" ?
i'm speaking as an eventuality, as more people want more space to live and want to own some cottage property/tree farms, they should buy crown land (unless its a national park designation). If theres no demand then the land is ultimately people's property.
I don't think the land should be owned by any one group in paticular. The government can protect the land from people who are not citizens or from this country who may wish to take it, and the provinces can protect the land from the Government if they plan on doing something the province/community doesn't agree to, but as it goes towards regular people trying to live in this country, nobody should have to be stuck paying the government property taxes, nobody should be told what they can and can not do on their own properties based on what others consider are poor eye sights that deminish their property value......
we were all born in this country (Most of us anyways) therefore I see no justification to treat average citizens like apartment renters on the lands we all call home.
Then again, the laws of the land are a lot more stricter in Australia then they are here, as half of the animals you can't even hunt, you can't take sand or shells from the beeches (I guess that is the same in some spots of Canada) and a few other weird restrictions.
we were all born in this country (Most of us anyways) therefore I see no justification to treat average citizens like apartment renters on the lands we all call home.
Then again, the laws of the land are a lot more stricter in Australia then they are here, as half of the animals you can't even hunt, you can't take sand or shells from the beeches (I guess that is the same in some spots of Canada) and a few other weird restrictions.
It's easy to forget where we've come from. Crown lands serve roles that are vital to our communities and environment. Recreational space is currently the most widely applied use of crown lands I think, but historically speaking, it served much more crucial purposes, mainly, access to water. By privatizing crown lands, you would remove that access, that guarantee. While we may not recognize the need for it now, that is a HUGE issue.
I grew up in a river valley, with both the river running through, and an ox bow lake on our property, and we had great respect for the fact that people were allowed access to the crown lands that run along any river, and border any significant body of water. It was drilled into our heads that people had a right to fish, to camp, to boat, etc.
I grew up in a river valley, with both the river running through, and an ox bow lake on our property, and we had great respect for the fact that people were allowed access to the crown lands that run along any river, and border any significant body of water. It was drilled into our heads that people had a right to fish, to camp, to boat, etc.
Well I guess what I was getting at is this:
I'm walking though some public land in the countryside one day with my team of experts and a few high-tech gadgets, and lo and behold, we discover petrol, trees, diamonds, water, and all kinds of other resources. Now this is public land. So if I decide to bring in the trucks and the machines to suck it all dry, who do all these resources belong to?
If we say they belong to no one, then it's finders keepers! If we say that it belongs to the people, then the question is, the people of a province or territory, or the nation.
If it's the province or territory that owns it, then that means that I have to buy all these resources from the provincial or territorial government, and negotiate a price with them. If we say it's the nation, then I'd have to negotiate a price with the federal government to buy all these resources, and the feds get the money to spend for the betterment of the people of Canada. So the question is:
Do these resources belong to no one (finders keepers, I'm there first, so I get to cut all the trees and start strip mining before my neighbour gets to it).
Does it belong to the province or territory to sell and I give them the money at a negotiated price.
Or the federal government?
They belong to the Crown, held in interest for all Canadians, or in some cases Albertans, Bluenosers, whichever Province you're in. It's the commons.
You'll likely sign an agreement where you lease the land from the government. That means you have to abide by certain rules. If you bought the land, you could basically remove every resource, strip it clean, save for regulations that require buffer zones and what not.
For example, mineral rights can no longer be bought, you have to lease them. Here's the Natural Resources Canada page detailing all of that.
Canada's Mining Taxation - Mining regulations
Not so simple. The Queen has a GG at the federal and provincial levels. Should it be the federal or provincial/territorial that manages her land? That's the real question, and I beleive that it's a touchy issue for Alberta. Right now I believe that it's the provincial (i.e. the provincial government decides whether to sell resources on crown land and for how much). Some on the other ahnd would argue that it ought to be federal, with the federal government deciding whether to sell resources on this land, and for how much, and get the proceeds from the sell. This is the crux of it. Who should get the proceeds from teh sale of resources on crown land, the federal or the provincial?