- Parks Canada refuses to say when they warned Guilbeault about Jasper’s pine-beetle infestation
- Parks Canada knew about the problem in 2017
- Guilbeault has been vague about how many prescribed burns were done in Jasper National Park, and blamed the fire on climate change
Parks Canada has stated that it’s “not possible” to say when Environment Minister Stephen Guilbeault and the Prime Minister’s Office was warned about the potentially devastating impact of Jasper National Park’s pine-beetle infestation.
Seven years before the massive fire in Jasper National Park in July, experts had warned Parks Canada, managed under Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, that a pine beetle infestation had left many trees as potential fire fuel.
The fire resulted in the evacuation of over 20,000 people, including 5,000 residents, burned down 32,000 hectares of forest and 30% of the town of Jasper’s structures.
In a response to an order paper question submitted by the Conservatives, which asked when the PMO and Guilbeault’s ECCC were informed about the potential impact of the infestation, Parks Canada replied by saying they don’t have the resources to accurately provide a response.
“Producing and validating a comprehensive response to this question would require a manual collection of information that is not possible in the time allotted,” they stated.
Parliamentarians have 45 days to reply to order paper questions.
Last month it was revealed that Environment Guilbeault’s Parks Canada, the federal agency overseen by Minister Steven Guilbeault, rejected help from qualified fire fighters and 20 fire trucks during the Jasper National Park wildfire.
Testimony last month from Minister Guilbeault, alongside Parks Canada officials, defending their handling of forest fire prevention and management of Jasper National Park. Guilbeault said that prescribed burns have been conducted for years, but failed to provide specifics on frequency, the number of burns in the past five years, or the total area covered.
Guilbeault blames climate change
Guilbeault dismissed accusations of insufficient preparation, blaming the forest fire on climate change, despite data showing a decline in the percentage of the global surface area burned over the past century.
“As we are seeing, in Canada and all around the world, we are seeing more and more aggressive forest fires, and this is what we were faced with,” Guilbeault stated.
Canada experienced more forest fires in 2023 than in any year over the past four decades, although 2020 had the lowest number in the same period.
