Federal negligence at root of Jasper’s wildfire devastation

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When an enormous wildfire roared through Jasper National Park and Jasper townsite in July, the feds wanted very little input from Alberta. Parks Canada asked Alberta, which has a lot of expertise in fighting wildfires, for a bit of help on the ground, but it wouldn’t invite Alberta officials into the integrated command structure.

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However, now that the embers are out and the devastation is all that remains, the feds contend Alberta should pick up the clean-up and rebuild bills.

Alberta Deputy Premier Mike Ellis testified remotely before a parliamentary committee on Monday that there is a “disconnect between the province’s lack of agency on the ground in Jasper and the financial burden it now faces,” noting that Alberta is “responsible for most of the bill in regards to the recovery.”

Ellis said Alberta’s crack firefighters had asked for some decision-making authority – such where to use equipment and how – before the 32,000-hectare fire consumed one-third of the structures in the town and caused $900 million in damage, but their requests were rebuffed time and again by Ottawa.

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Why would the federal government do that, Ellis was asked by Conservative committee member Dane Lloyd.

“That’s a question … you should probably ask the minister,” Ellis replied. He meant Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault. And the implication was clear. Alberta’s help was unwanted.

It might have shocked some Canadians that the Liberal government would rather have seen a national park and town burn than accept help from Conservative Alberta. But it is no shock to most Albertans.

What was semi-shocking in Monday’s testimony was the claim by Kris Liivam, president of Arctic Fire Safety Services, that the 20 trucks and 50 firefighters his company brought to the Jasper blaze were turned away by Parks Canada officials, even though they are pros at fighting forest fires on behalf of governments and companies that do work in the bush.

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You might have thought Parks Canada would have been grateful for any help. Not so, apparently.

But as galling and frustrating as Liivam’s testimony was, it shouldn’t have surprised either. After hearing the professional fire boss’s remarks, I recalled something in my notes from Premier Danielle Smith’s first news conference the morning after fire levelled the southwest third of Jasper town.

Smith testified, much as Minister Ellis did on Monday, that Alberta offered help but federal bureaucrats turned it town. Her remark then got lost until Monday’s testimony by her deputy.

On July 25, the day after the fire ripped through town, Smith said Alberta, which has equipment for fighting forest fires at night, offered to put that equipment and its operators at Ottawa’s disposal, but the feds said no. Alberta also said that as the walls of fire climbed to 100 metres high, Alberta offered the equipment it has to build walls of water up to similar heights, but Parks Canada turned them down.

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That means for three days (and nights) as the fire drew closer and closer to town, vanity appears to have kept federal officials from accepting help from Alberta that might (I stress, might) have helped mitigate the devastation.

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And the negligence goes back farther than that.

For years, Parks Canada and Environment Canada had been warned over and over that a “devasting” fire was inevitable if they didn’t clear out the thousands of acres of dead pine trees killed by a beetle infestation, either by “prescribed burns” and the logging of deadwood.

And now Manitoba MP Dan Mazier has used access to information to uncover internal Parks Canada and Environment Canada emails outlining how the ministry would not authorize prescribed burns earlier this year out of a fear of “public and political perception” of starting a fire during a drought.

More and more fingers point to Parks Canada’s and the Environment department’s policies and bureaucratic posturing as the underlying causes of the Jasper devastation.

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