Kinew blasts U.S. Republicans for rant against wildfires from Canada

Premier Wab Kinew criticized several U.S. Republican lawmakers — describing them as “ambulance chasers” — who complained about smoke that is drifting over the border from wildfires in Canada.

Six Republicans wrote to Kirsten Hillman, Canada’s ambassador to the U.S., on Monday to ask how Ottawa plans to mitigate wildfires and “suffocating” smoke that heads south.

“Our constituents have been limited in their ability to go outside and safely breathe due to the dangerous air quality the wildfire smoke has created,” the letter said.

“In our neck of the woods, summer months are the best time of the year to spend time outdoors recreating, enjoying time with family, and creating new memories, but this wildfire smoke makes it difficult to do all those things.

The lawmakers — Tom Emmer, Brad Finstad, Michelle Fischbach and Pete Stauber of Minnesota, and Glenn Grothman and Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin — claimed a lack of active forest management has been a “key driver” of the issue, while arson has also been a factor.

“With all the technology that we have at our disposal, both in preventing and fighting wildfires, this worrisome trend can be reversed if proper action is taken,” they wrote.

Wildfire smoke from Canada has been a problem in the past, they said.

The letter drew a strong rebuke from Kinew on Thursday as Manitoba declared its second provincewide state of emergency this wildfire season.

He said he has talked to, and shaken hands with, some of the hundreds of U.S. firefighters who’ve come to Manitoba to help battle blazes across the province.

“I would challenge these ambulance chasers in the U.S. Congress to go and do the same, and to hear how much the American firefighting heroes who were here, how much they loved our province,” Kinew told reporters.

“This is what turns people off from politics is when you’ve got a group of congresspeople trying to trivialize and make hay out of a wildfire season where we’ve lost lives in our province. There’s no place for that in politics.”

Susan, 61, and Richard Nowell, 59, died when a wildfire rapidly spread through an area northeast of Lac du Bonnet in May.

“If you can’t get likes on Instagram from your own skills as a politician, don’t bother trying to throw other people under the bus during a state of emergency,” Kinew added.

The U.S. lawmakers’ letter did not mention impacts of climate change, a subject the premier discussed Thursday.

“If you can’t get likes on Instagram from your own skills as a politician, don’t bother trying to throw other people under the bus during a state of emergency.”–Premier Wab Kinew

“The climate is changing, and our society will need to change along with that,” he said.

Manitoba is experiencing its worst wildfire season in at least 30 years, officials said Thursday.

More than 25,000 Manitobans, mainly from northern communities, have been displaced by fires throughout the season. Some evacuations were required due to heavy smoke that has blanketed communities.

Air-quality warnings or advisories have been in effect at times across Manitoba.

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca

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Chris Kitching
Reporter

Chris Kitching is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He began his newspaper career in 2001, with stops in Winnipeg, Toronto and London, England, along the way. After returning to Winnipeg, he joined the Free Press in 2021, and now covers a little bit of everything for the newspaper. Read more about Chris.

Every piece of reporting Chris produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.