Ahead of an apocalyptic wildfire season, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government made cuts to the very teams who help prevent the worst outcomes — experts who map wildfires and issue warnings and risk assessments that communities rely on.
The union representing these workers, the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC), shared a document with me summarizing the cuts that they said are “well underway.”
The cuts hit, to name a few, experts who monitor air quality, wildfire and flood risks as well as people who undertake various forecasting and detection work to make sure we can issue more specific, earlier warnings to communities.
Among the services Carney’s government cut was the 24/7 Weatheradio, which had been in service for more than 50 years. It provided battery-powered alerts when electricity and cellular networks failed, which the union said is “especially important in northern, remote, and Indigenous communities.”
“People are being told to rely on apps and internet alerts, but when the power goes out and cell service disappears, an app isn’t much help,” the union said.
“The communities facing the greatest risks should have more ways to receive emergency warnings – not fewer.”
Beyond that, the union said Canada’s entire High Impact Weather Research team was “disbanded.”
“These were the scientists developing and improving the algorithms and tools that make the radar network better at detecting severe weather and issuing more precise warnings,” the union explained.
Unions first warned about the risks involved with these cuts this last December, when Canada’s National Observer reported fears that cuts to teams responsible for tracking “wildfires, floods, landslides and other geohazards” would “decimate capacity.”
“If these cuts proceed, we’ll have just four forest pathologists left, and only one left to monitor the entire forestry system east of the Rockies,” the union leadership said at the time.
Now, the weather dystopia is here — and Canada is left to reckon with the impact of these cuts, despite record investment in other areas, like defence.
Carney: ‘affordability’ and ‘investment’ over climate targets
As Canada continues to burn, Carney was pressed directly about his climate inaction.
Even the press conference itself was bewildering.
While wildfires are upending lives and burning innocent animals, Carney stepped out to make a new spending announcement. Not on wildfire resilience or climate action, though, no.
He announced $2-billion in defence spending on armoured combat support vehicles, which will be built by a Canadian subsidiary of the U.S. defence contractor General Dynamics.
Before launching into his defence spending announcement — and despite knowing the cuts he made that could have improved preparedness — Carney thanked the people “working tirelessly to keep our people safe” during the wildfires.
That was the last mention of the dystopian horrors outside until a reporter pressed Carney on the question of his decision to admit we’ll be prioritizing oil and gas development and will be missing our 2030 emissions reductions targets.
“What do you say to Canadians who believe these current climate conditions are a sign we should lean into our climate targets rather than drop some of them?” the reporter asked.
Carney replied, without a hint of self-awareness, “I absolutely agree.”
“The way we — the government — views ‘leaning in’ is actually putting the investment in the ground that’s going to achieve those climate targets. We relied too much on targets, laws that weren’t driving the actual investment that’s necessary to reduce emissions,” Carney responded.
That claim, right off the bat, was misleading. Carney has already admitted that Canada is not going to achieve “those climate targets,” and now he’s claiming we’ll get there through investment — a vague claim that’s further muddied by proposed Canadian investment in new oil and gas infrastructure.
Carney went on to state that “core to that” investment-driven reduction of emissions is the “electricity strategy,” which he said involves “doubling the scale of our grid over the course of the next couple of decades — a grid that’s almost 85% clean power.”
The Canadian Climate Institute has warned that this electricity strategy “points in the right direction,” but currently “sidesteps critical issues” — notably the fact that the government is weakening Clean Electricity Regulations and is unclear about how significant a role dirty gas power will play in the future.
Carney said the intention is to maintain the grid’s clean power, but that needs to be done in a way that “also preserves affordability for Canadians.”
“We have amongst the lowest electricity costs in the world. We want to keep those, and so a climate strategy that looks to affordability in the short term, and builds those emission reductions with major investments,” Carney said.
Carney added that these investments and major projects are “low carbon.”
“So that new oil pipeline, as a precondition, a precondition of that new oil pipeline, is the Pathways Project, which removes is the equivalent of removing 90 percent of the vehicles on Alberta roads,” he said.
There’s a reason the oil and gas industry loves carbon capture projects like Pathways so much.
It’s a so-called “climate solution” that allows them to keep extracting. In fact, the majority of captured carbon worldwide is used to frack even more oil out of otherwise depleted oil wells — and Canada still gives oil and gas companies a tax credit if they use their captured carbon in this way.
Carney also highlighted methane reductions requirements for Alberta (a 75% reduction his MOU with Alberta delayed for an additional five years, and which Alberta doesn’t seem to have a working plan to meet) and the carbon price, which the Pembina institute said won’t see a “meaningful price on Alberta’s industrial carbon emissions until 2040.”
To summarize, Carney doubled down on his current climate crisis approach, an abdication of responsibility — even as Canada burned around him.
How to help
While governmental failures are a big-picture concern that demands our attention, communities across Canada are suffering from the wildfires as we speak, and we can help them.
The Anishinabek Nation 7th Generation Charity is raising funds for First Nations to assist with emergency supplies, resources and temporary shelter. You can donate to them here.
CanadaHelps also has a dedicated page for Canadian Wildfire Relief Efforts, which includes fundraisers for first responders, the Red Cross, and even the SPCA and Humane Society who are providing pet supplies for evacuees.
The world can feel scary and overwhelming at times like these, but in showing we care about each other — whether by donating if you have the means, or by demanding better of our leaders — we can make sure people feel a little less alone.
That version of Canada? That’s the one I want to live in.
