"Prescribed burning, a traditional Indigenous practice, was stopped more than 100 years ago but restarted in the 1980s when Parks Canada discovered it had allowed the forest to grow out of control, Park said.”
Oops.
Without periodic wildfires, deadfall and new growth build up so quickly that a fire, when it eventually does happen, burns so hot that the old trees, veterans of many natural wildfires, are consumed along with the rest. I have no easy answers, because these unnatural forests, thick with dead trees from pine beetle ravages, pose a huge potential for another catastrophic wildfire. But the way forward will require informed input from all knowledge keepers, “modern” and traditional. Don’t fall for simplistic “solutions" such as logging national parks. Trees aren’t the enemy -- ignorance is.
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We weren’t planning to go. However, money is tighter now so it’s affecting how much we’re camping. So maybe I should’ve voted Not Sure.
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If the "much-needed health-care system reforms” Mentzelopoulos was holding up were on par with what we’ve seen since (further moves to privatize the delivery of health care at public expense; increasing the number of ministers and their staff to oversee the separate branches to four -- now we have the same number of ministers as Ontario, a province with triple the population), no wonder she was dragging her heels.
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I feel for the unfair stress farmers are having to endure (on top of all the usual uncertainty) because of the irresponsible, self-interested actions of a supposed world leader.
My only hope is that the Americans will have to PAY the tariffs and buy our canola, because it’s unlikely there’s another ready market source nearby. And they may be just a little unhappy having to fill the coffers of their government who’s so intent on enriching the chosen few.
In the meantime, I will try to support our local farmers as much as possible.
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“The Premier affirms a firm commitment to protecting and honoring the inherent rights of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples.” Talk about wanting to have your cake and eat it, too. Proceeding with this expensive, wasteful, divisive, distracting, destructive bill makes about as much sense as having a referendum on the law of gravity.
We are all treaty people, like it or not. I stand with the tribal chiefs.
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We shouldn’t call people ignorant. Unless, perhaps, they intended to be the Prime Minister of Canada but didn’t realize that rivers don’t always flow south.
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Alberta’s "oil and gas exports are sold almost exclusively to the United States at a cut rate.” Take that up with the UCP. We depend on the US to refine our product. If we did it here, and did more than just give a nod to environmental standards (could you imagine?), we’d have a product that the rest of Canada, and other countries, would fall over themselves to get their hands on. But let’s not delude ourselves: other countries are working hard to rid themselves of their reliance on fossil fuels.
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Excellent essay. I’d like to think the endorsements you mentioned after these stories were also AI-generated.
The biggest tell is whether you feel compelled to learn more after reading/watching it.
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“Before signing any blank cheques for another pipeline, our new prime minister should remember how much love the old prime minister got for spending $34 billion to build a pipeline that still isn't full."
There’s a real danger in trying to appease the UCP government. They have clearly shown that nothing would satisfy it. On the contrary, their entire culture is built around confrontation, so their grievance focus would merely shift down the line. Unity and cooperation send the wrong message to their base, which requires raw meat.
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It should be required that everyone, Albertan or otherwise, who supports this project needs to be utterly dependent on the water downstream. Like the farmers and ranchers who opposed this, and are.
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