Given Canadians’ well-known concern for the environment, it may be difficult to find anyone in Canada who is against improving the quality of the environment. However, a reliance on unnecessarily costly and intrusive policies over the past several decades has likely turned some people against environmentalism. But there are a growing number of market-based policy options that would improve environmental quality at a lower cost and with less government intervention than in the past. These policies are a breath of fresh air because they are cost-effective, market-oriented, less intrusive, and more appealing to broader sections of the Canadian public.

The purpose of this book is to outline several market-based environmental policy options, and to explain why the enactment of such policies would improve environmental quality and natural resource policy in Canada. In this book, the authors provide examples of the direct application of market-based policies. These policies include the strong protection of property rights, the use of environmental pricing, the application of cost benefit analyses, and the devolution of the power of decision making to local agents who are most closely connected to the issues and more easily held accountable. The book concludes by describing how Canada can learn from the policy experiences of other countries.