Sean Maynard

Jasper and climate change Irek the Liberal MP from Windsor saw the Jasper fire. He - and others - are tweeting to make sure everyone knows how much they believe in climate change. He quotes Joe Biden, says “hearts break” for Albertans, then adds, ominously: “But let’s also be real with each other: this is the world that climate-denying Conservatism will leave our children”. They can’t seem to help themselves. I wanted to ignore, but Irek is an MP, not just another keyboard climate activist, so if he cares about climate and fires here’s how he can hold the govt accountable: 1. Jasper is a *federal* park. ParksCanada has its own fire service. It is totally responsible for all wildfire prep, operations and management to protect the park and the town. 2. The locals have been deeply concerned about dead tree stands and the lax “leave it to nature” green thinking in the ParksCan bureaucracy - a notoriously slow, political, unresponsive maze that struggles to manage core functions from its HQ far away from the largest mountain parks in Gatineau, Quebec. Thousands of tweet/exchanges as recent as last month highlight local concern over Jasper as a tinderbox managed by a sclerotic bureaucracy at Parks for seven years. 3. Forest mgmt isn’t political. Its engineering. Albertans want competence that protects lives and homes and parks with better infrastructure and planning and processes from a bureaucracy that gets things done. Politics are secondary. As a result, Irek and people like him that believe climate change facilitates forest fires should use that MP status and conviction to demand answers from ParksCan CEO Ron Hallman and Stephen Guilbeault ASAP: -Why were there vast tracts of dead and dessicated tree-stands in Jasper that the locals have demanded action on since 2017? This was noted by academics, environmentalists and everyone working in and around Jasper for years. What was done? - Were global best practices followed on controlled cuts, controlled burns, well-tended fire access roads, funding, operations and mitigation priorities to protect the town? - How well equipped and prepared was the fire suppression team at Canada’s second most visited national park? What steps were taken to protect the Jasper townsite, specifically. Parks Canada needs to release all departmental notes and emails on the fire plan for Jasper the past seven years since the pine beetle dead tree crisis. Because climate change didn’t leave acres of dead trees next to a beautiful mountain town for seven years. The government did. 4. Climate change is not a matter of belief/denial. It’s nature. Its systemic. Tweeting about it publicly when a disaster is underway may feel good, but what you do about it is the only thing that matters. The Toronto flood was going to happen. Like Irek, the mayor talked about climate change. But she failed to plan for flood infrastructure and updated processes. This drove up costs and damage. The mayor has no power over nature. She controls city planning. Her opinion on the climate is irrelevant, her job was to mitigate risk. The Jasper fire was going to happen. The parks all have routine fires and it’s part of nature. What isn’t supposed to happen is that we lose a mountain town a federal bureaucracy is tasked to protect. The costs of a politically correct bureaucratic failure are too high. You can’t just say “climate”. There has to be accountability. Jasper is a stunning, almost magical place. I played and hiked there. I loved it as a kid and took a long break there next to the lake with friends as an adult. It’s one of those rare places you can stare into the stars at night with skies that go on forever. Watching it burn is terrible. I’m especially heartbroken for friends and other Jasper residents who lost so much more than just a beautiful park this week. Canada can do better than this.