Inland cities like Montreal have seen the levels in their river waters drop by over 6-feet over the period of a century. Higher ocean levels would merely return the river water levels around Montreal to where they were over a century ago. Montreal would continue to be a major inland maritime port city after the climate warms and the ocean levels rise. The great concern about climate change in Central Canada is that water levels in the Great Lakes could drop to levels that would curtail shipping and reduce hydroelectric power generation along the Seaway system. Even the annual volume of water that flows over Niagara Falls may need to be reduced. Such a drastic move could allow excess off-peak power from power stations to be used to pump water from Lake Ontario to the higher elevation in Lake Erie. The power may be held there in temporary storage until demand increases during peak periods.

          The prospect of climate change could propel governments into implementing misguided environmental policies that would likely achieve the opposite of their well-intentioned objectives over the long-term. Several thousand scientists (8000 who signed the Oregon Petition and 4000 who signed the Heidelberg Appeal) have rejected the hypothesis that human activity is the cause of recent changes in weather patterns and climate and have instead pointed to a variety of other causes to climate change. However, bureaucratic action is believed to have kept such information away from politicians who have since bought the carbon dioxide theory of climate change. Political action in regard to climate would more than likely have negative long-term economic repercussions.

          The future prospect of more frequent storms over the ocean and higher ocean water levels would cause flooding in coastal areas. In a free market, land that is prone to frequent flooding would decline in value. Governments may choose to remain popular with voters and fund programs to build levees or dykes to protect coastal areas that could become prone to frequent flooding. A hurricane in 2005 (Katrina) broke through the levees at New Orleans and revealed the shortcomings of state-funded levees. There are even fears in Holland that rising ocean levels could spill over the dykes/polders and flood most of that nation. Canada could use alternatives other than dykes and levees to manage any rise in the levels of ocean water.

          Canada's Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world. Those tides could rise even higher under a regime of more severe storms caused by climate change and by rising levels of the ocean. One productive way to deal with possible future super tides in the Bay of Fundy would be to allow private enterprise to build canals or tunnels (that house turbines and electrical generation equipment) from the east end of the Bay of Fundy to Northumberland Strait. Power could be generated twice every day since the tide rises to a greater height in the Bay of Fundy than in Northumberland Strait. A similar approach could be undertaken in Newfoundland between Placentia Bay and Trinity Bay to prevent the Trans-Canada Highway from being flooded by future oceanic super storms.

          There is a remote possibility that in the distant future Canada will experience the effects of climate change. Those changes could include reduced ice packs in a warmer Arctic, reduced water levels in the Great Lakes and elevated tides and higher levels along the coastal regions. Many of these changes represent future business opportunities that private companies could bring to fruition in a free-market economic environment. However, political reputations and bureaucratic stature would be built on developing political solutions that would depend on forcible restraint and coercion of peaceful private citizens. Such an approach would likely lead to a squandering of billions of tax dollars. A government that allows an unregulated private sector to create innovative business solutions to global warming and climate change may actually achieve far more to manage the problem than any bureaucrat could achieve using a state-contrived plan.