A 22-year-old man has been charged for starting Nova Scotia’s biggest forest fire in recorded history — and one that several Liberal MPs blamed on climate change.

Dalton Clark Stewart has been charged under the Forests Act for lighting a fire on private property without permission, failing to take reasonable efforts to stop the spread, and leaving the fire unattended. 

The Barrington Lake wildfire, which started May 27 2023, ultimately turned into Nova Scotia’s worst in recorded history, growing to 235 square kilometres (23,525 hectares), forcing 6000 people out of their homes, and burning 60 homes to the ground.

Three days after the fire broke out, then-Immigration Minister and now Housing Minister Sean Fraser, who’s from Nova Scotia, stood up in Parliament and blamed the huge wildfire on climate change, while criticizing the Conservatives for not taking the issue seriously enough.

A number of Liberal MPs amplified Fraser’s comments by reposting them through their own social media accounts, including none other than Climate Change Minister and the self-declared socialist, Steven Guilbeault.

Guilbeault regularly spoke of Canada’s abnormal wildfire in 2023 as proof that the Liberal Party’s carbon tax was needed, despite the fact that the number of wildfires in 2020 was the lowest over the past four decades.

Liberals said fire was from climate change

Also reposting Fraser’s comments was the Liberal’s Natural Resources and Energy Minister, Jonathan Wilkinson, as well as Liberal MPs Ya’ara Saks and Ryan Turnbull. 

Former Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett also spread Fraser’s climate fearmongering, as did former Liberal Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna, not long after she encouraged the government to broadcast climate change propaganda at NHL hockey games between periods.

As of January 18, 2024, Fraser’s false claim has been seen over 500,000 times through X.

Last year, Trudeau’s former advisor and long time pal Gerald Butts blamed climate change for the forest fires that were started by arsonists across Canada.

CityNews Everywhere also reported that “The fingerprints of climate change are all over the supercharged weather” when referring to Nova Scotia’s 2023 wildfire season.

Earlier this month, a Quebec man pleaded guilty to numerous charges against him in relation to starting 14 forest fires near the Chibougamau area last summer.