Alberta Asks Ottawa to Pay for Jasper Wildfire Recovery

A residential block destroyed by wildfires in Jasper, Alta., on July 26, 2024. The Canadian Press/Amber Bracken

Alberta is asking the federal government to pick up the cost of Jasper’s recovery from this summer’s wildfires, saying the fire originated in an area of federal jurisdiction where Alberta had limited decision-making opportunity.

“This is a fire which originated in the national park and then spread to the town of Jasper,” Mike Ellis, Alberta Deputy Premier and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Services, said at an Oct. 7 House of Commons committee meeting.

He noted that because national parks are under federal purview, “we need to have a discussion on the costs, and that the federal government may be responsible for the cost of this fire.”

Ellis told the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development that the province was kept at arm’s length during operations to tackle the wildfires, while most decision-making was done by a unified command between the town and Parks Canada.

“We, of course, wanted to be included in the unified command from a decision-making perspective, right from the very beginning,” he said. “At this point, we were only in an advisory role. Yet the province of Alberta is responsible for most of the bill.”

Out-of-control wildfires tore through Jasper on July 24, destroying roughly a third of its structures and forcing about 25,000 residents and visitors to flee. The fire caused more than $880 million in insured losses, making it one of the costliest wildfires in Canada’s history.

Ellis said Alberta approved a disaster recovery program with a budget of about $149 million, but only a portion of it is eligible for reimbursement under the federal disaster financial assistance program.

When asked by Conservative MP Dane Lloyd why Alberta was not invited to join the command from the beginning, Ellis said the decision was in someone else’s hands. “That’s a good question,” Ellis responded, “a question you should probably ask the minister or the national park.”

In response to Ellis’s comments about Alberta’s lack of involvement in decision-making, Liberal MP Adam van Koeverden said Emergency Preparedness Minister Harjit Sajjan maintained “constant and consistent” coordination with the province and made Alberta his first contact to call when it came to “officials’ perspective.”

Sajjan, who spoke at the same committee on Oct. 2, said during the crisis he was “in daily contact” with Ellis, as well as with other members of the government of Alberta and the mayor of Jasper.

“We were monitoring the wildfire in Jasper and also in northern Alberta very closely,” Sajjan said.

Ellis said what van Koeverden said was true “from an advisory perspective,” but that his comments referred to the province’s lack of decision-making ability.

Beetle-Killed Trees as Wildfire Fuel

Speaking at the same House committee on Oct. 7, Alberta Forestry and Parks Minister Todd Loewen raised concerns about what he said was a lack of adequate wildfire prevention measures by the federal government, such as prescribed fires, to remove beetle-killed trees from national parks.

“The mountain pine beetle-killed trees, undoubtedly, contributed greatly to the tragic events in Jasper,” he said. “The vast number of dead trees accelerated the wildfire, making control actions difficult and arguably impossible.”

Loewen said “narratives” that frame controlled burning negatively “fail to recognize” the role such measures have played for thousands of years in landscape conservation. “The tragic events in Jasper highlight the importance of proactive measures in forest conservation and fire prevention,” he said.

Parks Canada says the outbreak and expansion of beetles in recent years is due to the lack of natural fires and the effects of climate change. “The lack of fire, combined with a recent warming trend, means that the beetles are now occurring where they haven’t been observed before: farther east, farther north and at higher elevations,” Parks Canada says on its website.

Sajjan said on Oct. 2 that “everything that could have been done was done.”

Managing Fire

The federal Conservatives have been vocal on the issue of Jasper wildfires as well, saying the Liberal government hasn’t been dealing with the issue adequately.

At the Oct. 7 committee hearing, Conservative MP Lloyd repeated his previous comments that politicians and scientists had warned in past years of the risk of wildfires in Jasper, but the Liberal government’s response, under then-environment minister Catherine McKenna, was that “the ecological integrity of the park must be protected.”

The Conservatives also say they found evidence the Liberals have intentions to eliminate controlled fires. This assertion is based on an internal email exchange between senior officials at Parks Canada.

A Feb. 21 email from a senior Parks Canada director, addressed to another official, says: “At what point do we make the organizational decision to cancel prescribed burns in Western Canada? As more and more media articles raise public concern over drought conditions, public and political perception may become more important than actual prescription windows.”

A later email, dated Feb. 23, shows the response of the other official, who said that a “blanket closure” of prescribed burns was not a good idea, due to the “critical” function of this type of burns.

“More proof that [federal Environment Minister Steven] Guilbeault’s senior officials discussed cancelling ‘planned prescribed burns in Western Canada’ months before Jasper burned,” wrote Conservative MP Dan Mazier in an Oct. 3 social media post, sharing screenshots of the internal emails.

During the Oct. 2 committee meeting, the Conservatives asked Andrew Campbell, senior vice president of Operations at Parks Canada, if it’s appropriate for Parks Canada to give “greater weight to politician perceptions, as opposed to the proven science.”

“It is not appropriate that we would weigh a political decision more than science,” Campbell said. “We continued with all of the prescribed burns that we have planned. Full stop.”

Liberal MP van Koeverden said the Tories were politicizing the issue with their line of questioning, adding that “it’s a natural disaster which is impacted by human events like climate change.”

Coordination

The Conservatives have also raised concerns about recent testimony at the committee that a crew of 50 firefighters and 20 trucks were turned away from Jasper by park officials as the town burned.

Kris Liivam, president of Arctic Fire Safety Services, testified on Oct. 7 that his crew went to the scene, but “they were not allowed to engage the fire.” He said his crew felt “deflated,” and that their large-sized equipment could have had a significant impact on saving the town.

Parks Canada said they were not notified of the arrival of the group of private firefighters, and that self-deployment can cause distraction and confusion during an emergency.

“They were hired by a private company to work outside the city, so were not part of the incident, and at a time when there was no shortage of resources: at the height of a fire, acting in an organized and united way, while ensuring the safety of firefighters, is the only real rampart against fire,” Parks Canada told The Epoch Times in a statement.

“However, after clarifying what they were actually doing there, they were eventually allowed in with specific instructions, and helped to fight the fire, which could have had far worse consequences without this swift and effective handling.”

The federal government, for its part, says it took all possible measures to prevent and fight the wildfire.

“To think that over all those decades, we would not have deployed all of the resources necessary to try and do everything that is humanly possible to protect a town from a forest fire is simply not true,” Guilbeault said in July. “The fact that we were able to protect 70 percent of the town speaks to all of those measures we have put in place over the years and frankly, decades.”

At a committee meeting on Sept. 25, Guilbeault said Parks Canada has used prescribed fires for four decades, including 15 controlled burns in Jasper National Park in the last 10 years. He added the government has invested “millions of dollars” in the battle against pine beetles.

“The Government of Canada has invested in Jasper National Park for wildfire risk reduction activities, such as vegetation management to reduce wildfire risks to people, infrastructure and assets,” he said. “The total area treated in Jasper National Park since 2014 is approximately 1,700 hectares. However devastating the fire was, Parks Canada’s response and preparedness ensured that it was not much worse.”

The wildfire investigation has sparked heated exchanges in the House of Commons between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre, with the Conservative leader saying the fires were exacerbated by the government’s negligence in implementing controlled burns. Trudeau, on the other hand, says wildfires are the result of climate change, and that his government is implementing a number of policies to address climate challenges.