Thoughts on BC Politics and More

PART 2 of Budget estimates for the Ministry of Forests – Wildfire Timber Salvage (from Tues March 10th, 2026)   WARD STAMER:   Let’s just move on a little bit from that to wildfire. We can talk about this. If we can, let’s ask a couple of questions around salvage. We know full well that we’ve lost an incredible amount of fibre in the last five years, ten years, on wildfire. I’m looking at the information in front of me, when it talks about the minister’s…. It’s the manual for wildfire recovery. In that document, it specifically says that we have specific timelines when it comes to salvaging fibre from a wildfire. There are implications, even in the minister’s numbers, saying that the expectation is only 10 percent… Ten percent is the number to recover wildfire fibre. Now, there are many of us that would disagree with that number. Part of the reason, I believe, that we’re having that low number is it’s taking an incredibly long period of time to be able to access th...

The provincial government expects to plant nearly 50 million fewer trees this year — a 17 per cent drop from last year’s planting season at a time when the province has seen a major spike in wildfire activity. The projections come from presentation slides obtained by Glacier Media and shown to the ­industry in September, less than 10 days before the BC’s ­provincial election campaign kicked off ... the NDP promised to plant 300 million trees annually across the province to “help increase forest resilience.” That promise followed two of the most destructive wildfire seasons in BC’s history. In 2023 alone, more than 6,000 fires torched 15 million hectares of land, an area larger than England ... according to the province’s own projections, the government expects the number of trees planted to sink to 233 million in 2025, 47 million fewer than were planted in 2024 ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Fire crews across much of Canada are already on high alert for the coming wildfire season, only months after the conclusion of the worst season on record . . . . . . . . Alberta also declared last month that its wildfire season had started, 10 days early, and BC issued a notice saying it was monitoring holdover fires from last year. The BC Wildfire Service has since announced a number of prescribed burns, in an attempt to reduce dried vegetation and protect communities against wildfires. More than 100 fires are still burning in BC and Alberta after unusually dry conditions in both provinces . . . . CLICK HERE for the full story

  Thomas Leblanc spent 35 years fighting wildfires in Montana, Alberta, British Columbia and his home province of Ontario, but when he developed a cancer linked to firefighting, he was repeatedly denied workplace coverage ... ... In 2009, Leblanc found a lump in his neck and was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, one of more than a dozen cancers considered a presumptive work-related illness in most parts of Canada for structural firefighters. That means the illness is automatically accepted as likely being caused by occupational exposure — making it easier to access workplace compensation and supports. Leblanc applied to Ontario's Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) for compensation but was rejected. In all but four jurisdictions in Canada, wildland firefighters are excluded in legislation from the presumptions granted to structural firefighters, who respond to fires inside buildings, fire alarms, chemical spills and accidents ... CLICK HERE ...

California has set goal of reducing the wildfire risk on 4,000 square kilometres each year by 2025, an area 1,000 times the size of Stanley Park.    The B.C. government doesn’t have a comprehensive wildfire and forest resilience plan unlike California and Washington state, whose plans have helped produce faster and more significant results.   B.C. has set no goals on how much land it wants to reduce wildfire risk on each year or larger timelines, and it doesn’t track and report publicly on progress, as do the two U.S. states, shows a review by Postmedia News of publicly available plans ... CLICK HERE for the full story

  Former Liberal environment minister Catherine McKenna had harsh words for Conservatives who oppose carbon taxes.     In a post on X (formerly Twitter), McKenna called them “arsonists” responsible for the growing number of wildfires across Canada.    McKenna formerly served as a cabinet minister under Trudeau from 2015-2021 first as minister of environment and climate change and then as minister of infrastructure and communities from 2019 to 2021, when she didn’t seek reelection.   “Conservative politicians want to fight about a price on carbon pollution? You want to make it free to pollute while Canadians pay with their lives threatened, homes destroyed and their communities obliterated? So what are you going to do? You are the arsonists,” McKenna wrote on X ...   CLICK HERE for the rest of the story

  This year's coast-to-coast wildfires in Canada have already emitted an estimated one-and-a-half billion tonnes of CO2 . That's triple the annual climate pollution from burning fossil fuels in Canada. It's more than the combined emissions from 100 nations. And there are still months of fire season looming ahead.   As extreme as this year's wildfire emissions have been, they are just the latest escalation in a multi-decade flood of CO2 pouring out of Canada's "managed" forests and forestry. (Note: Canada only reports emissions from the parts of the forest it "manages." This is around two-thirds. Some managed forest areas are managed for logging, while others are managed for non-timber uses like recreation, water, wildlife and fire protection. See the endnotes for a map and more details.)   To illustrate the scale and pace of our metastasizing forest carbon crisis, I turned to data in Canada's official national greenhouse gas inventory...

  ... With destructive wildfires impacting communities across Turtle Island, Sinixt knowledge-keepers say policies preventing Indigenous-controlled burns are largely to blame and must be dismantled.   Throughout colonization, European settlers have waged war on fire — and criminalized Indigenous communities who’ve used it for millennia to enhance their lands.   “Fire is not the enemy,” said Janessa Esquivel, a non-binary sn̓ʕaýckstx (Sinixt) and sənpʕʷilx (San Poil) person. “Fires are part of the ecosystem, of our cultural ecosystems. If Indigenous people were allowed to do what we’ve been doing forever, the fires today wouldn’t look the same" ...     CLICK HERE for the full story

Amid the worst drought in provincial history, many experts are urging reforms to conserve fresh water on Canada’s West Coast   CLICK HERE to read the full story

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith won't say whether Canada's historic wildfire season is connected to climate change or not.   Speaking with CTV National News Chief News Anchor and Senior Editor Omar Sachedina, Smith did not directly answer a question on whether she believes a connection exists between the country's wildfires and climate change.   "All I know is in my province we have 650 fires and 500 of them were human caused, so we have to make sure that when people know that when it's dry out there and we get into forest fire season, that they're being a lot more careful because anytime you end up with an ignition that happens, it can have devastating consequences," Smith said ... CLICK HERE for the full interview

As the world gets hotter, the need for human intervention in forests goes up, not down, writes Jamie Stephen.   With this year’s record-breaking wildfire season, politicians and the public can no longer ignore the truth – that forests are Canada’s single largest climate change issue ... CLICK HERE for the full commentary

On Tuesday (May 28 th ) the BC government released its quarterly environmental enforcement summaries for the third and fourth quarters of 2018.  The summaries detail a total of 1,728 environmental enforcement actions taken by the provincial government during this time period, resulting in just under $900 thousand in penalties and fines. In total, thee issued 246 orders, administrative sanctions, court convictions, and administrative penalties issued ... plus 2,412 violation tickets.   Most frequent violations were for actions that were in violation of the Wildlife Act (1,040), the Fisheries Act (375), and the Off-Road Vehicle Act with 344 violations. Fines for these offenses totaled $1,092,465 in fines in 2018. Some of the violations however would surprise you.   For example, there were MULTIPLE tickets handed out, through-out the province, due to individuals driving with a loaded fire arm in their vehicle ... failure to comply with An...

Alan Forseth ~~ Kamloops, BC ~~ May 14th, 2019 Yesterday, Conservative MP Dan Albas tabled a Private Member's Bill,  As he stated in presenting it to Members of the House of Commons, the Bill (C-447) was one he believed would give Canadians some peace of mind that their property is protected from criminal activity during an evacuation order due to flooding or forest fires. Albas observed that over the past couple of weeks we had seen the very best of Canadians, as people volunteered to help their neighbours struggling with flooding in Ontario, Quebec , and New Brunswick. “ In my home province of British Columbia, I’ve seen the same thing when people are fleeing high water or wildfires are welcomed with open arms into the homes and communities of their fellow Canadians ”, Albas observed before continuing. “ However, some people use disasters as an opportunity to abuse that trust, and prey on the vulnerable through theft and looting ”.  ...