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OTTAWA — Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said on Wednesday that his ministry is not to blame for the fire that ripped through Jasper National Park this summer, devastating one-third of all structures in the Alberta mountain town, and that nothing could have been done to prevent it.
“(T)here was no stopping this fire, and no forest was going to escape its path,” Guilbeault told a parliamentary committee investigating the federal government’s responsibility for the unprecedented wildfire.
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Questions have been raised about whether the federal government, which oversees Jasper through Parks Canada, had done enough to prepare against a catastrophic wildfire, particularly given the amount of dead trees in the area, resulting from years of pine-beetle infestation.
The environment minister told the committee that Jasper was one of Canada’s most “fire-prepared” communities before the 32,000-hectare blaze, which started in late July.
The fire started when a lightning storm sparked multiple fires in federally administered parkland surrounding Jasper, forcing an immediate evacuation of all Jasper residents.
Guilbeault demurred on multiple occasions when asked whether the federal government bore any responsibility for the disaster, touting recent investments in forest management and wildfire mitigation.
Responding to MPs’ questions, he implied several times that the opposition Conservative party bore responsibility for not taking climate change seriously enough.
“I find it incredibly ironic that your party… would be asking these questions when you oppose both measures to fight climate change and measures to adapt to climate change,” Guilbeault told Conservative MP Dane Lloyd in a testy exchange.
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The environment minister repeatedly evaded questions about the federal government’s response to multiple warnings of the potential for a catastrophic forest fire in Jasper, including exhortations in 2017 from both Jasper’s mayor and the MP whose riding the municipality falls in.
Researchers Ken Hodges and Emile Begin warned a catastrophic Jasper blaze was “a matter of when, not if” in 2018.
Hodges said in July that he was “frustrated” by the devastation he saw in Jasper.
“All I could say is that we tried to warn them that it was coming. We told them constantly.”
The fire has spurred nearly $900 million in insurance claims, making it one of the costliest disasters in Canadian history.
National Post
rmohamed@postmedia.com
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