My Country is on fire. We know who the arsonists are.

Canada is on fire, from coast to coast. As of June 8, 2023 nearly nearly 4 million hectares had burned, 15 times the national average. In Quebec alone, 645,000 hectares have burned, which is nearly 500 times the average of the past decade. In a few days, this will become the worst fire season ever, even though it has only just started and runs for several more months.

It’s hard to overstate the impact. There are fires in nearly every Province - thousands of kilometers apart. Smoke is blanketing North America - photographs of US east coast cities a huge distance from the fires show them blanketed in a dark smoky haze as if they were back to the era of burning coal. Mass evacuations have occurred and homes and infrastructure destroyed. 

Factories, mines, electricity generation, oil and gas facilities shut down. The system is overwhelmed - in Quebec they are choosing which towns and villages to abandon to fire because there are not sufficient firefighters, waterbombers or pilots to address every one. Firefighters from around the world are racing to Canada to help - from South Africa. From France. From the United States.  

This isn’t normal. It’s dangerous. Destructive. Impacting significantly on the human health of tens of millions of Canadians and Americans.  It’s not normal - but it is climate change. The abnormal conditions - hot and dry before summer - that have led to these unprecedented wildfires are a result of changed weather resulting from global heating. And are a forerunner of what is to come. 

It’s notable that these impacts are happening in Canada. A major oil and gas producer, we are one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases in the world. And despite the fact that our national government led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was elected on a platform of climate action, the oil and gas sector, our business press, and conservative politicians are all cheerleaders for more oil and gas production - not less. Various excuses are offered (“China is worse, we are a small country, our oil is more ethical than Saudi Arabia’s) - none of which stand up to scrutiny. The latest argument, that gas is a transition fuel, is blatantly false. Studies show that methane leaks in the system mean that gas is as dirty as coal. The science is clear - we have to halve overall emissions by 2030, and Canada, like all countries, must do its part. 

Instead, we see well financed opposition to even basic climate measures like the governments carbon tax, and near daily proposals for new projects to exploit  fossil fuels like gas. The latest craze is LNG, with proposals for new terminals to export to Europe and Asia getting serious discussion in political and business circles, seemingly oblivious to the fact that such projects - and the pipelines designed to feed them - cannot possibly happen if we are to prevent climate breakdown. 

Canada, and Canadians, has and have a special responsibility to act. We have benefitted from easy and cheap access to fossil fuels, and have created the emissions that are causing climate change - and environmental disasters like these fires. 

Will we? There is hope in that the vast majority of Canadians accept the science and demand action. There is hope in our cities, who, like Montreal, led by superb Mayor Valérie Plante, who is not waiting for action and has taken the bold step of ensuring all new buildings will be carbon free, as of 2025. 

But there is also a rearguard action. Last month, the Alberta Conservatives narrowly won re-election, with exploiting oil and gas and denying the need to act a against climate breakdown at the heart of their platform. This week, Premier Danielle Smith was interviewed about the devastating wildfires in Alberta and she implied that they were the result of arson. 

In a way, she is right. And we know who the arsonists are.

Until next time,