Parks Canada denies existence of warnings about Jasper wildfire, despite mounting evidence

Parks Canada has claimed it has no records of warnings from outside experts or individuals about the catastrophic wildfire risk in Jasper National Park—despite years of documented concerns from locals, experts, and officials.

Sheila Gunn Reid
  |   November 23, 2024   |   News

 

Rebel News filed for records related to the devastating wildfire that tore through Jasper National Park, devastating 30% of the residential town site. The wildfire inside the park remains under federal management, and was forewarned for the better part of a decade by experts and locals alike who said that not enough was being done to clear away the forest in the park which had been killed by a mountain pine beetle infestation.

Here's what we asked for:

"Provide copies of all documents, including e-mails, texts or Instant messages, WhatsApp messages, slack messages, Signal messages, Twitter/X Direct Messages, correspondence, memos, reports, briefing notes, etc., regarding any concerns or questions raised about forest management/fire prevention activities (or lack thereof) in Jasper National Park from January 1, 2019, to July 26, 2024.

For example:

"Please be advised that a thorough review of our records was conducted and no documents were located in reply to your request."

How is this possible? Here is the aforementioned Ken Hodges testifying about the correspondence he sent to Parks Canada at the Environment Committee:

Emile Begin and Hodges wrote an article in the Jasper Paper, presented their findings to the town and Parks Canada responded to them. 

But there are no records? 

They say they have no records of the Jasper Mayor Richard Ireland sounding the alarms.

Also no records of Parks Canada’s then-conservation manager for Jasper, Salman Rasheed, who said in 2016 extremely dangerous to leave so many dead trees in place for so long. 

Unbelievable. 

No records of town resident Marie-France Miron started a campaign in 2018 called Save Jasper, the purpose of which was to compel Parks Canada to mitigate fire risk. Her campaign included a Facebook page and a demand for a town hall with Parks Canada superintendent Alan Fehr. 

Also no records of the letters local Marty says he sent to Parks staff in this post here: 

This is ridiculous. We asked for records we know exist and Parks Canada officials, who are better paid and better resourced than ever say they can't find a thing. 

Maybe the records are where Parks Canada put the plan to get rid of the pine beetle deadfall. If that's the case, those records are gone forever. Jokes aside, we are appealing. Those records exist and I will get them. 

Sheila Gunn Reid

Chief Reporter

Sheila Gunn Reid is the Alberta Bureau Chief for Rebel News and host of the weekly The Gunn Show with Sheila Gunn Reid. She's a mother of three, conservative activist, and the author of best-selling books including Stop Notley.

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  • Lynne Osborne
    commented 2024-11-24 12:42:59 -0500
    Parks Canada, the experts in charge of millions of acres of dead trees enchroaching on a vacation focused townsite need laymen to warn of a fire hazard? This is after Fort Mc, Slave Lake, Waterton Park and Yellowstone burned to a crisp? You could not make this stuff up. Maybe we should go back to hiring on the basis of merrit. Obviously putting folks in charge that know what they are doing is a foreign concept to Parks Canada. I suppose the defence of incompetence keeps those in charge from facing jail time. Otherwise one would get the idea that the Parks Canada officials planned this Jasper fire as a way of supporting Trudeaus claim that all fires, floods and forest bug outbreaks are caused by “climate change”.