Two villains have emerged in the fires in the Southern Interior that have destroyed 30 homes and laid waste to thousands of hectares of arid mountainous forests.
First, the Rock Creek fire appears to have been caused by a cigarette butt tossed aside by a careless smoker. Second, aerial efforts to fight the fires have been hampered by remote-controlled drones flying in the area, jeopardizing the safety of the plane and helicopter pilots.
Premier Christy Clark and editorial cartoonists can wag their fingers all they want. This behaviour is not going to change. Too many smokers think it is their God-given right to cast their butts on the ground and leave the mess for someone else, even if it doesn't cause a forest that leads to people losing their homes and the government spending millions to put the blaze out. Too many people think that because they have the money and time to fly a drone around that they own the air space.
Politicians and bureaucrats admonishing residents to change their behavior works even worse than voters demanding politicians and bureaucrats to change their behavior. All joking aside, residents simply tune out government warnings about unsafe and unhealthy activities. Something more needs to be done.
Based on the harm and the potential damage that cigarette smoking and operating drones cause to individuals and to society at large, the provincial government needs to slap a new tax on cigarettes and drones. Call it the forest fire tax.
Sure, there are many responsible smokers who don't throw their butts on the ground or out the window as they drive along, just like there are many responsible owners of drones. Call it guilt by association. It makes no sense to sue an individual that causes a forest fire with an errant cigarette or a helicopter or plane crash with a drone. The lives of entire families would be ruined and it still wouldn't cover the millions in damage.
Instead, everyone who smokes or flies a drone for fun should pay a premium for the right to do so, to compensate for the risk of harm to society. Cigarette smokers have been paying these kinds of tax premiums for decades, to help cover the increased health costs to treat the cancers of smokers and people exposed to secondhand smoke. This will be just another tax for them to pay.
Drones are difficult to police and users, particularly in rural areas, are tough if not impossible to catch when they violate air space (or take pictures of nude sunbathers, an increasingly common occurrence). So put the sales tax up front and then throw in another form of taxation, a government licence to own and operate a drone, for good measure.
Instead of the entire population sharing the financial burden of responsibility, the individuals causing the problems should, as a group, bear the cost.
-- Managing editor Neil Godbout
