Alberta wildfires: truth and fiery consequences

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 31/07/2024 (464 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I read it and was infuriated by its manipulative stupidity. I was even more disappointed, however, that it appeared to be accomplishing its objective.

On Saturday morning, a post appeared on my Facebook feed that showed a yellow water bomber, with this message above the photo: “AS CANADA BURNS REMEMBER. With the money we sent to Ukraine we could have bought 50 fully crewed CL-415 water bombers.”

At the bottom of the photo, it added that “and with the money left over we could have bought 250 more.”

The photo is just one of many similar posts currently circulating on social media in the aftermath of the terrible fire that destroyed much of Jasper, Alberta last week. Supporters of premier Danielle Smith and her United Conservative Party of Alberta government have been quick to shield her and her colleagues from blame for the tragedy.

A journey through a number of social media sites reveals a growing chorus of posts that claim Smith and her team did everything they could to protect Jasper. They instead accuse Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government of having been indifferent to the wildfire threat that was facing Jasper days before the disaster. They accuse Trudeau of not sending the help that Jasper desperately needed before and during those fires.

They allege this is all Trudeau’s fault, but the facts are against them.

A review of dozens of media reports from the past decade reveal that successive Alberta governments cut millions from forest fire prevention and firefighting budgets in the years leading up to this week’s disaster. They ignored dire warnings that many communities were at elevated risk of massive wildfires such as the one that devastated Fort McMurray in 2016.

For example, a May 5, 2016 report in the Calgary Herald asked if cuts to Alberta’s fire prevention and fire suppression budgets were responsible for the Fort McMurray fire. The report pointed out that $5.3 million had been cut from the forest fire preparation, prevention and mitigation budget, $9.4 million had been chopped from the base wildfire management operating budget, and another $5.1 had been slashed from air tanker contracts.

A May 10, 2023 report in The Narwal — just last year — stated that “Alberta wildfire fighters place much of the blame for the current situation on the shoulders of the UCP government, which has gutted firefighter programs and failed to retain staff.”

That report revealed that Jason Kenney’s UCP government closed 26 active fire observation towers across Alberta in 2019, reducing detection coverage in the province by more than 20 per cent. Months later, that same government cut funding for the Rappel Attack Program, which trained specialized, highly-skilled crews to rappel from helicopters into inaccessible locations to battle fires.

On January 31 of this year — just seven months ago — Global News reported that Alberta fire chiefs were “desperately seeking the province’s strategy for the upcoming wildfire season.” The report revealed that the chiefs were becoming increasingly anxious over the absence of a feasible plan to fight wildfires, lower funding compared to previous years, and the lack of a viable strategy for the recruitment and deployment of firefighters and equipment.

In response, a representative of the Smith government told Albertans that the government had made “a number of improvements to our wildfire prevention, preparedness, response and mitigation efforts, and we are confident in our ability to respond to wildfires across our province.”

The Smith government may have been confident when the snow was still on the ground, but the reckless cuts, poor leadership and successive governments’ refusal to listen to independent experts and fire chiefs are big reasons why Jasper lays in ruins today — and even bigger reasons why we should be very concerned about the future of communities like Banff and Canmore.

Indeed, a report in the Calgary Herald this past weekend quoted an expert who said the two communities are “primed to burn” due to decades of forest mismanagement.

Alberta’s wildfire catastrophe has absolutely nothing to do with Canada’s funding for Ukraine, nor is it an issue the Trudeau government can be credibly blamed for.

This is an made-in-Alberta crisis, caused by politicians who chose to cut costs while knowingly putting lives, communities and wildlife in harm’s way.

They gambled and Jasper lost. Who’s next?

Deveryn Ross is a political commentator living in Brandon. deverynrossletters@gmail.com X: @deverynross