Madam Speaker, we have been in committee talking about these issues over the last couple of weeks. Jasperites have written to me. They have sent messages to me, and they have asked us to tone down the political rhetoric on this because it is reopening old wounds. Instead of trying to estimate the number of trees that still stand in Jasper, I know there are very many trees that still stand, thankfully, as the fires in Jasper did not consume the whole park. It is an extremely large park. It did consume a third of the town, and it was a great tragedy. However, the politicization of this wildfire by the Conservatives has been disgusting. That notion is shared by Jasperites.
I would like to read from a local Jasper newspaper called the Jasper Local. The article is called “Recipe for Disaster: Misinformation and wildfire”, and it reads:
Record dryness, extreme heat, high winds, and a lightning storm. This summer in Jasper National Park, all of the ingredients of a recipe for disaster were in place.
Now, two and a half months after that disaster came to pass, another set of circumstances—misinformation, toxic politics and facts-starved social media blowhards, desperately looking to pin blame—have lined up to wreak havoc.
On July 22, 2024, after bolts of lightning ignited three sparks which blew up into fast-moving wildfires 30km south of Jasper, Initial Attack firefighting crews radioed Parks Canada Incident Command.
On top of another fire that sprang to life north of town, the news from the south wasn’t good.
“All three fires were already well into the crowns,” Parks Canada fire specialist Landon Shepherd learned....
Meanwhile, tornados were being reported all over B.C. and Alberta.
“Conditions were unprecedented,” Shepherd said.
What wasn’t unprecedented, was collaborating with his fellow wildfire specialists. And so as soon as he had a handle on the gravity of the wildfire situation, Shepherd picked up the phone and called Gord Glover.
Gord Glover isn’t a federal official. He’s not an Ottawa bureaucrat, nor a politician. Glover is an Operations Officer with Alberta Wildfire, based out of Edson.
Last year, when Edson was under threat of being impinged by fast-running wildfires south of the community, Shepherd was one of Glover’s first calls.
“They know to call us when their backs are up against the wall.... Alberta was overwhelmed,” Shepherd said.
Even so, Alberta Wildfire sent what they could. Parkland and Yellowhead Counties roared in to help. Banff showed up. Ontario was sending teams. Yukon sent ignition specialists. From B.C., Quesnel was on their way. Valemount, Tete Jaune and McBride—who were under an evacuation alert of their own—sent engines. And many private contractors—running helicopters and heavy equipment—were used.
Jasper said yes. To resources. To help. They said yes early and they said yes often. They said yes to wildland teams and they said yes to municipal departments.
“We kept saying yes,” Shepherd said.
But they didn’t say yes to everyone.
Unified Command did not immediately say yes to an independent fire fighting businesses seeking to access Jasper to perform structural protection services for a private company.
They did not say yes to a group of trucks and personnel who—while having had been deployed by the Government of Alberta—did not have prior arrangements for access.
They did not say yes to a self-dispatching team who had not signed an agreement to abide by the ICT’s rules of engagement.
And they did not say yes to a crew of mercenaries known as Arctic Fire Safety Services, the bulk of whose resources arrived the day after 350 structures burned in Jasper.
“We can’t just have rogue agents patrolling around,” Shepherd explained. “It’s too dangerous. What if they get in the way of wildfire operations we’re doing?”
Recently, those rogue agents have popped back up. And although the fires in Jasper have long been put out, the hyperbole that these hired guns are now spewing is once again putting people in harm’s way.
This week, dressed in the shiny-buttoned, double-breasted uniform of a fire chief or high-ranking officer, Arctic Fire Safety Services president Kris Liivam complained to a parliamentary committee that his crews were obstructed from doing their jobs by Jasper’s Unified Command. That testimony, lapped up like fresh milk by hungry alley cats, is being weaponized by opposition MPs and social media warriors alike.
Fanning the flames of these politically-driven comments sows division, mistrust and hard feelings amongst Canadians in general, but among Jasperites in particular. The negative rhetoric is wearing on locals, many of whom were involved in the incident, and many others who lost their homes and livelihoods to fire and desperately want fact-based answers.
Even Jasper’s Mayor, now well-known to Canadians for his diplomacy, fortitude and tact, weighed in on the scuttlebutt.
“The present atmosphere of finger pointing, blaming and misinformation—”