By Josh Andrus

Originally posted in the Western Standard

Parks Canada officials admit they failed to conduct controlled burns of dead pine trees, which now pose a significant fire risk.

While Ottawa fixates on climate change rhetoric, their neglect of forest fire prevention has left Alberta’s landscapes vulnerable to devastation.

Last week, a shining beacon of the beauty of our province was partially destroyed as a wildfire burned through the picturesque town of Jasper. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims.

Thankfully there has been no reported loss of life. But many people’s livelihoods have been wiped out. The question is how did this happen, and what could have been done to prevent it?

Smokey Bear’s famous saying was: “Only you can prevent forest fires.” And, in this case, proactive measures certainly could have made a difference.

Unfortunately, the entire federal government seems to have forgotten Smokey’s key point. Fire prevention on national park land is federal jurisdiction.

In 2022, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault was informed that Parks Canada managers had not taken adequate precautions to protect the Town of Jasper from wildfires, according to documents obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter. At that time, Parks Canada officials admitted they had failed to conduct controlled burns of dead pine trees, which posed a significant fire risk.

“A mountain pine beetle infestation has brought significant changes to forests in Alberta, including Jasper National Park, with consequences for wildfire risk,” Guilbeault was informed.

Almost half of Jasper’s Whitebark Pine forest, 44%, was infected by beetles. However, few steps were taken to reduce the risk to the Town of Jasper with controlled burns of the surrounding forest, records show.

“Fire has not yet been applied for Whitebark Pine restoration,” stated a 2022 implementation report. “Mechanical thinning has been completed in 1.6 hectares, which is a small area relative to the amount of Whitebark Pine habitat.”

No reason was given for failing to take precautions. Since the fire, Guilbeault has made no public mention of the management reports.

Even though federal officials, including his department, knew the raging pine beetle was a serious hazard, Guilbeault blamed climate change: “As we are seeing in Canada and all around the world, we are seeing more and more aggressive forest fires,” he said on a media call on Monday.

Landon Shepherd, Incident Commander for Parks Canada, also attributed the intensity of the blazes to climate change: “This isn’t meant to be a discussion about climate change, but anyone who’s involved in fire management can tell you that things have become more difficult, especially in the last five years, to manage impacts.”

The 2022 warnings were not the first time concerns about a lack of fire prevention in national parks have been raised.

In 2018, CBC reported concerns from experts. Emile Begin and Ken Hodges, foresters for 40 years who had been studying Jasper National Park, found multiple issues with the forest that make it susceptible to a fire.

“You have fire suppression that has occurred for many years — therefore, you get a lot of dead fuel that would have been consumed by a natural process,” Hodges said. “The mountain pine beetle adds even more fuel to the situation.”

“You’ve got a major catastrophe on your hands if you get a match thrown into that.”

When pressed about the concerns, Alan Fehr, a superintendent for Jasper National Park, said: “We’re quite comfortable with where we are with our own emergency planning and evacuation planning.”

Hodges disagreed: “The potential that’s out there is actually scary. Hopefully, we’re wrong.”

Despite the repeated warnings of potential devastation due to forest management practices, Ottawa continues to point to climate change as the cause of the fires.

The Alberta government has been preparing, and increased its firefighting budget by more than 50% to $155.4 million this year. Alberta’s firefighting budget is now the highest it has ever been (despite misinformation about cuts.)

However, without proper fire prevention on national park land, blazes can become out of control quickly — as the warnings indicated.

Smokey Bear would be horrified. Clearly, Ottawa needs to spend less time interfering in provincial jurisdiction and more time focusing on things that actually are federal jurisdiction, like fire prevention in national parks.

Their inability to see the forest through the trees and take legitimate action to protect our national parks from the fury of an out-of-control wildfire demonstrates a degree of ineptitude that is, quite frankly, shocking.

Ottawa needs to stay in its lane and focus on its own jurisdiction, and they need to stop blaming climate change for their own ineptitude.