Alberta’s deputy premier slams ‘unified command’ snub by feds during Jasper wildfire

OTTAWA — Alberta’s number two elected official said on Monday that provincial authorities should have had more decision-making power when a wildfire ripped through Jasper National Park in July.

Speaking virtually to a parliamentary committee investigating the summer blaze, Alberta Deputy Premier Mike Ellis said that the province was kept at arms length by a unified command joining Parks Canada and the Town of Jasper.

“This place(d) the province in a position where (it could) certainly influence (the wildfire response) but not decide,” said Ellis, who also serves as Alberta’s minister of public safety.

Ellis pointed to the disconnect between the province’s lack of agency on the ground in Jasper and the financial burden it now faces, noting that Alberta is “responsible for most of the bill in regards to the recovery.”

The 32,000-hectare wildfire caused nearly $900 million in insured losses, making it one of the costliest disasters in Canada’s history.

Ellis told Conservative committee member Dane Lloyd that the Alberta government was kept in “an advisory role” as flames tore through Jasper, despite asking the unified command for decision-making power at the start of the crisis, implying that federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault was behind this decision.

“That’s a question… you should probably ask the minister (of environment) or the national park,” Ellis replied when asked by Lloyd about why the province wasn’t better integrated with the unified command.

Committee members heard in earlier testimony from private firefighter Kristopher Liivam that a convoy of 20 fire trucks was turned away from Jasper by Parks Canada officials on July 25, three days after the fire broke out.

Alberta Minister of Forestry and Parks Todd Loewen also appeared virtually before the committee on Monday, using his time to urge the federal government to step up preventative measures for future wildfires.

“Parks Canada’s approach, though well-intentioned, has drawn criticism for being reactive,” Loewen told the committee.

The federal agency has been dogged by questions about whether it could have done more to clear out the large volume of highly flammable pine beetle-killed trees in the area.

Experts warned for years of the potential for a catastrophic blaze in Jasper National Park, with one team of researchers warning in 2018 that a major fire in Jasper was “a matter of when, not if.“

The lightning-caused fire started in federal parkland but soon spread to the Municipality of Jasper, destroying one-third of all structures in the Alberta mountain town.

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