00:00:00.000Throughout the Jasper fire, we encountered numerous examples of Parks Canada fire management
00:00:08.940actively obstructing our activities and not providing us with relevant information on fire.
00:00:13.360What was done was insignificant and poorly thought out.
00:00:16.980It did nothing to protect the town from the Jasper fire complex.
00:00:21.260We're doing nothing to protect you against forest fires.
00:00:30.000Well, we are learning some truly insane things about the federal government's response to the Jasper wildfire this past summer.
00:00:37.440For one, we now know that private fire crews were ordered to stand down and not assist in the fighting of the Jasper wildfire by different federal agencies
00:00:46.580while the wildfire was ripping through Jasper National Park.
00:00:50.400This latest revelation, layered on top of what we already know to be truly insane levels of incompetence when it comes to fire prevention by Parks Canada,
00:00:58.260is beginning to paint a very dark picture as to what exactly happened in Jasper over the summer.
00:01:05.020It's beginning to look as though the wildfire was entirely preventable.
00:01:09.660The Trudeau government has blamed every wildfire in this country over the past few years exclusively on climate change,
00:01:16.500refusing to acknowledge or take any responsibility for their inaction.
00:01:20.360Now, we don't want to ascribe intentional malice to anyone at Parks Canada for the Jasper wildfire.
00:01:26.080But with the information that we are starting to learn now from committee meetings,
00:01:29.800can you really blame Canadians for thinking that way?
00:01:32.620Now, before we get into the show, be sure to drop a like on this video, help us out by subscribing to the Trude North YouTube channel,
00:01:37.700and the comment question for the episode is this.
00:01:41.040Who should be held responsible for the negligence in battling the Jasper wildfire?
00:01:46.280Let me know your answer in the comments below, and let's get into it.
00:01:49.100Well, thanks to an ongoing parliamentary committee looking into the handling of the Jasper wildfire last summer,
00:01:55.700we now know that while Jasper was burning, while a third of Jasper had been burned
00:02:01.700and close to a billion dollars of damages had occurred from the devastating wildfire,
00:02:06.100Parks Canada turned away the services of a private firefighting group.
00:02:11.320Now, this is not just a ragtag group of men pretending to be firefighters without proper authorization.
00:02:19.820This group, Arctic Fire Services Limited, had been contracted out by the Alberta government to protect the town of Jasper.
00:02:28.480So while the fire was taking place, Parks Canada turned them around.
00:02:33.240Take a listen to this shocking committee testimony.
00:02:35.320Throughout the Jasper fire, we encountered numerous examples of Parks Canada fire management
00:02:39.060actively obstructing our activities and not providing us with relevant information on fire.
00:02:44.300We were provided rules of engagement, which we had to accept or be escorted out by the wardens.
00:02:50.680They reiterated twice by Parks Canada Operations Section Chief,
00:02:53.900second in charge to the incident commander, that we were not legally allowed to be there.
00:02:57.100In a letter sent by Arctic Fire Safety Services to parliamentarians,
00:03:02.020it states clearly that throughout the Jasper fire, we, Arctic Fire Safety Services,
00:03:08.340encountered numerous examples of Parks Canada fire management actively obstructing our activities
00:03:13.200and not providing us with relevant information on the fire.
00:03:16.580It goes on to state that these firefighters were informed that they were non-essential.
00:03:23.560And when the fire risk rose again during August the 2nd to the 4th,
00:03:27.120with increasing fire behavior anticipated, they were lawfully ordered by Parks Canada to leave the park.
00:03:33.240This organization was not allowed to be part of the incident management organization.
00:03:39.240However, wildfire defense systems from Montana, so a foreign wildfire organization,
00:03:46.320was allowed to be part of the incident management organization.
00:03:50.580So 50 firefighters and 20 fire trucks were turned away by Parks Canada from battling this wildfire.
00:03:57.120We now know from other testimony, this time from Ken Hodges, a forestry expert,
00:04:02.720that Parks Canada did nothing to address the situation building up on the ground
00:04:06.560with the invasive pine beetle that created fuel for the Jasper wildfire.
00:04:11.860Nothing was done to address the landscape of the beetle-killed timber
00:04:15.960to prevent the mega fire of July 22nd, 2024.
00:04:19.120What was done was insignificant and poorly thought out.
00:04:23.660It did nothing to protect the town from the Jasper fire complex.
00:04:27.980So what are Parks Canada even doing at this point?
00:04:30.720What are they doing to prevent another major devastating wildfire
00:04:35.060that could ruin another piece of Canada's natural landscape?
00:04:40.380Jasper National Park is one of the most naturally beautiful places on Earth,
00:04:44.480and a third of it has now been burned to the ground and ruined
00:04:47.780due to what is clearly, clearly negligence and incompetence.
00:04:51.700No one at this point is seriously blaming the Jasper wildfire on climate change.
00:04:58.020Except, of course, Stephen Gilbeau, Justin Trudeau's Minister of the Environment.
00:05:04.580We're doing nothing to protect you against forest fires.
00:05:07.300Forestry experts are now all saying the same thing,
00:05:10.000that Parks Canada did not do enough to prevent this wildfire from happening.
00:05:14.280Furthermore, I spoke to Peter Schultz, a former Jasper National Park senior planner
00:05:19.840who worked at the park in 2008, and he claimed that as far back as even then,
00:05:26.500Parks Canada was not doing anything to clear the dead wood, to clear the fuel in the forest.
00:05:32.180They basically allowed the perfect situation, they allowed a tinderbox to build up inside Jasper National Park.
00:05:40.020And, of course, the park caught on fire.
00:05:42.080There's confidence in stopping the small fires, but I know that the fire team was telling upper management repeatedly,
00:05:49.340at least back in 2008 and since forward, there's a certain point we can't fight it anymore.
00:05:55.660There's too much fuel. It'll catch too fast.
00:05:58.640We need to clear out. We need to prescribe burns during wet weather.
00:06:03.220We need to get machines in there. We need to log.
00:06:07.000We need to do things to remove the amount of fuel.
00:06:10.580We're very good at this, but there's a certain limit.
00:06:13.900And we have reached that limit. And that limit was reached 17 years ago.
00:06:17.180So Parks Canada allowed bureaucratic red tape to prevent fire crews from putting out this fire earlier.
00:06:24.060They also, through multiple testimony, as well as an interview with a former employee of Parks Canada at Jasper National Park,
00:06:31.440did nothing for over 10 years to prevent the buildup of fuel and dead wood in Jasper National Park to stop a forest fire from happening.
00:06:41.080But, of course, it's a whole lot easier to blame this devastating wildfire simply on climate change.
00:06:47.060To say that there's nothing anyone could do to prevent this from happening because climate change is simply unstoppable
00:06:53.840without, of course, the following measures that need to be implemented,
00:06:57.700such as a carbon tax, such as banning the sale of gas vehicles,
00:07:03.040such as shutting down Canada's natural resources industry.
00:07:07.880Isn't it convenient that all of the solutions to solving climate change advance the federal government's liberal agenda?
00:07:14.980And isn't it convenient, as well, that all of these wildfires are being blamed exclusively on climate change,
00:07:21.420despite the overwhelming evidence that the Jasper wildfire had nothing to do with climate change?
00:07:27.040We're looking at a situation in which Canadians are starting to ask whether or not criminal negligence took place in this instance,
00:07:34.200whether or not a crime might have actually been committed here.
00:07:37.400And it's not like Stephen Gilboa isn't used to committing crimes to advance his political agenda.
00:07:42.360Actually, it's something he's pretty good at doing.
00:07:44.980Greenpeace is climbing the world's tallest building today to tell the world not to be fooled by the liberal government.
00:07:50.460As the talk on climate change starts, we want to tell the world that the Bush and Canadian administration are out to kill the Kyoto Protocol.