Soil should be declared a national asset

U.S. President Donald Trump routinely acts like his pants are on fire. He’s always calling something a national emergency or a threat to U.S. security, even if it’s not.

And even though Canada usually takes a more measured approach to calamities, we are indeed facing a real threat to national security, one that’s been flying under the radar: namely, the depletion of our soil.

Hon. Rob Black, Senator for Ontario, wants the new Canadian government to do something about it: namely, declare soil a strategic national asset.

Black, from Fergus, was the chief architect of last year’s soil health report, Critical Ground: Why Soil is Essential to Canada’s Economic, Environmental, Human and Social Health. The report proposed 25 recommendations for the Canadian government toundertake to better protect, preserve and conserve soil.

Among them, it said the government should support farmers’ soil-improvement efforts, by establishing baselines for soil health and encouraging sustainable and innovative soil strategies.

The report said the status quo is unsustainable. Pollutants are permeating the soil and climate change is causing wildfires and floods on farmlands, it said. Deforestation is reducing biodiversity and urban expansion is paving over agricultural lands. As a result, Canada is losing healthy, arable, nutrient-dense soil. It can’t sustain increased soil degradation without losing the ability to feed the country.

The report was tabled almost a year ago. It didn’t get near the attention it should have from the Trudeau government or any of the provinces, despite sounding alarm bells. But it’s a new day.

The federal election is behind us. And Trump is stalking our natural resources like they’re prey. Soil, despite its challenges, could be next. So Black wants action now. He’s urging federal politicians to come together and declare soil a strategic national asset that is essential to the well-being and health of Canadians, as well as the future of our country.

The timing is good. Natural resource protection is top of mind with Prime Minister Mark Carney, like no modern leader of Canada before him. Carney is the first Prime Minister who’s had to fight to protect this country’s national resources from a foreign adversary (i.e., Trump), instead of from other Canadians, like developers.

And at a time when Carney needs some early political wins, declaring soil a strategic national asset might be considered a no-brainer, at least on the surface. It won’t cost a bundle, at least not yet, and it won’t alienate any particular part of the country.