A third of Jasper National Park has now been destroyed by the devastating wildfire that ripped through the town of Jasper, Alberta, Canada in July of 2014. Who is responsible for the negligence that allowed this massive fire to burn for so long?
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.