Sheila Gunn-Reid reports from Alberta’s wildfire-stricken Jasper National Park, where 30% of the UNESCO-listed town burned despite federal jurisdiction. CBC’s restricted access and $1.6B bailout-funded inefficiency contrast with Premier Danielle Smith’s proactive response, while Parks Canada ignored 2017 warnings about pine beetle-infested trees—only clearing 1.6 hectares by 2022. Gilbo and McKenna’s political priorities over fire prevention, plus DEI-focused units like Banff’s all-women crew, worsened risks. Alberta’s $2B wildfire budget and 50% firefighting fund hike since 2023 prove provincial urgency, but federal neglect remains the root cause. Gunn-Reid’s crowdfunding at helpjasper.ca directs aid to evacuees while demanding accountability. [Automatically generated summary]
We're just west of Jasper, Alberta and we are investigating why the fire was as bad as it was.
I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're watching The Gunn Show.
Sheila Gunn-Reed for Rebel News, and I'm here just west of Hinton, Alberta.
What you see behind me is a police checkpoint preventing people from going into Jasper National Park because the national park has out-of-control wildfires burning within it.
The town site of Jasper, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has been lost to wildfire.
30% of the town has burned, mostly the residential area.
Now, I'm here to do this journalism on the cheap.
We took my Jeep, my travel trailer, and we're staying in a campsite up the road.
If you want to support our independent journalism for this trip, but to also keep Rebel News journalists out on the street, please consider making a donation at rebelfieldreports.com.
But if you're like me and you feel compelled to help the people and the businesses of Jasper, Alberta, please consider making a donation at helpjasper.ca.
That's our crowdfund where 100% of the proceeds will go to an on-the-ground charity working with the evacuees and businesses of Jasper.
That's helpjasper.ca.
Now a little bit about our journalism here.
We're on the ground to try to get answers.
Why did this happen?
Why was it so bad?
And what could have been done differently?
That's what you're going to see from us for the next couple of days.
On the ground here in Hinton, Alberta.
I'm Sheila Gunread.
You know, at the end of my weekly show, I always say see you back here in the same time, in the same place next week, but this is neither the same time nor the same place.
I am in a campsite in Hinton, Alberta, the next closest town to the Jasper Town site.
Now, for those of you who don't know and I don't know how you possibly couldn't, the Jasper Town site, the historic UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Jasper Town site, 30% of it was lost to wildfire that ripped through the national park.
Now, it was a fire that burned outside of the national park boundary, but spread into the national park.
And once it got inside the national park, it's been described as a wall of fire.
And so we are here to investigate why it got so bad once it breached the park.
And the longer we are here and the longer we are since the fire ended up in the town site, the more facts are coming out.
And those facts are really inconvenient for the federal government and specifically the Environment Ministry and Environment Minister Stephen Gilbo.
I'm here with my videographer, Kian Simone.
He's been behind the camera for the entire day today.
We were able to film four videos on the ground and we have a little bit of time tonight before we have to get back at it again tomorrow morning.
So we thought we'd sit down and film the weekly gun show just to talk about what we saw, what we weren't able to see, and what we learned along the way.
So I guess we'll start with how accessible the Jasper Town site is.
We saw that CBC videographers were able to go into the Jasper Town site.
I was unimpressed with the quality of the video that they brought out of there.
In fact, I found Premier Daniel Smith's B-roll of the Jasper Town site to be far more compelling.
That's what they call pooled video means that CBC went and gathered it and then everybody else can use it.
But really, the rest of us can't get in there.
The video that I saw was literally just pictures that they have taken that they went in there.
When you mentioned it before, you said that they didn't get out of their car, but I feel like that's even worse is not actually showing.
I didn't feel like it showed the magnitude of it at all.
Yeah.
Bugs.
Bugs.
Bugs were outdoors.
Yeah, no, and that's, I felt like they didn't do it justice at all.
You know, me being from Toronto, the biggest disaster I've seen is traffic.
So I guess maybe it's selfish, but I was bummed out that we weren't able to see anything and experience it and to be able to show other people who don't really actually know how bad it was.
Yeah, CBC was, I guess, hand-selected by the feds because the feds have jurisdiction over the national park, even though the national park is in Alberta.
And it was kind of worse than disappointing.
I feel like it was a complete derelict of duty, the quality of the images that they took while they were in Jasper.
The world is watching with heartbreak, you know, like it is the second most visited national park in this country.
And people wanted to really see as best they could what happened there.
And we got stills and a TikTok.
And they sent an army of people here and they didn't get anything that an army should have gotten, like an army of videographers or cameramen or journalists.
We saw it with our own eyes when we were standing there.
I was doing drone work and camera work and you were doing all the journalism.
We had no lights because we were using the sun in the daytime.
And then beside us, they had these lights and the van battery plugged into the camera producer who's on the phone with someone else, probably from Ottawa, and then a journalist standing there who's also on the phone with someone.
And it was just like, what are you guys doing?
Yeah.
It's true.
Kian's not making this up.
We're standing up on the top of the hill overlooking the police checkpoint that stops people from going into Jasper.
And we're standing there working, the two of us, and an SUV pulls up, and then another SUV pulls up, and then another van pulls up.
Four people jump out.
One is the journalist.
I think they have like a cameraman, a sound guy, a producer, and then the journalist.
Their cameras have to be hooked to the battery of the van and the van has to stay running so they can do the journalism that we are doing with this camera and this microphone and our cell phones.
And then they wonder where all their like $1.6 billion of journalism bailout money goes.
It was ridiculous.
But let's talk about the inability to get to see anything in the Jasper town site.
Why don't you tell the people the lengths to which we went for half the day just to try to get close enough to get drone footage?
Yeah, the drone that we have, you know, can go about a thousand meters.
And so trying to get close enough to Jasper Park, which I feel like we were like kilometers and kilometers away, you know, driving down logging roads, roads that I don't even think were logging roads.
They were just gravel roads that someone made for fun, it felt like, at points.
And then to put the drone up, which lost signal before I could even get past a mountain, there is literally no way that you can see what's going on in there.
Driving Miles for Drone Footage00:02:26
Yeah.
And you'd have to drive, you know, hours in one direction, maybe, and then hours in the other direction, and then come back, and I feel like it'd still be closed.
Yeah.
Well, and it was.
The town of Hinton is teeming with our CMP, but it's also teaming with first responders.
I think they're occupying most of the hotel space here.
So there are teams of firefighters from all over the province, now all over the country.
And it looks like from other parts of the world, I saw South Africa sent some firefighters.
Military is in town also to help assist with the fires.
And this is all, even though the fire is burning within the federal national park, the province has really moved every resource that they could in to help.
It's inspiring, really.
Yeah.
It is.
It's cool to see, you know, when we were driving at first and we saw just it felt like there was like a hundred cars in just the spot that we were.
I'm sure there's way more park than other hotels and all over the town.
But just seeing everybody, like, I guess they're grouped together doing their morning meeting of how they're literally going to go fight a fire and save the rest of a town.
It's really inspiring.
Yeah.
Well, and it's not just the firefighters.
As we were saying before we started rolling, anecdotally, my cousin is moving rig camps up so that firefighters who are like not based near Hinton can stay closer to the fire to work.
So it's not just first responders, it's heavy industry that has been mobilized to help fight this fire.
And we've seen this time and time again.
We saw it in Fort McMurray this year when it was a fire sort of licked up close to town.
We saw it when Fort McMurray burned previously.
We saw it when Slave Lake burned that heavy industry also mobilizes at the same time because we're Alberta and we're so close to the oil patch.
We're uniquely positioned to deal with these things, besides the fact that almost everybody has safety training because of their close proximity to the oil patch, which is, I think, how people seem to always make it out of town safely in an orderly fashion.
We all know how to evacuate.
We all have muster points.
But that didn't happen in Lahaina when we sent journalists to Maui to report on the fires there.
It was chaos evacuating the town, and then the town was not secured.
Our journalists could get into town after it had burned.
Parks Canada's Dilemma00:14:08
There's not a hope in hell we're ever going to get into Jasper.
It really puts it in perspective too.
Like the town I'm from near Toronto, it's very Albertan.
Like I felt like it's, you know, it's very conservative, but it's a farming place and it just reminds that where I live now reminds me of home, which is interesting being in Ontario.
But to put in perspective, I feel like if a fire came into my town, everybody would be burned alive.
Yeah.
Like no one would know what the hell to do.
So it is really interesting to see the difference of a place that's prepared compared to like Lahaina, who maybe they were never expecting a fire ever.
Yeah.
And then it happens and then now what do you do?
Right.
Well, and speaking of expecting a fire, that's one of the reasons that we're here is it's now coming out.
And I guess it came out before, but now it's top of mind again.
What happened in Jasper should be a surprise to nobody, but least of all the people who are in charge of Jasper.
In 2017, the MP, a conservative named Jim Oglinsky, was raising the alarm bells about the amount of standing dead fall trees around Jasper that had been killed by the mountain pine beetle.
I think it's Parks Canada data.
44% of the trees within Jasper had been touched by pine beetle somehow.
And they need to be cleared away either through controlled burn or what they say is mechanically removed.
So just going and logging them and taking them out.
that really didn't happen.
Parks Canada's latest data says in 2022 only 1.6 hectares had been cleared.
2018 experts, experts, but researchers were saying there's a catastrophe on the horizon.
Something has to happen.
The mayor had been sounding the alarm bells, although he's sort of changed his tune lately.
It's quite odd.
Mr. Speaker, Jasper National Park, one of Canada's major tourist destinations, has been devastated by the pine beetle infestation.
Much of the forest is dead or dying.
The dead trees are a tremendous fuel load and present a significant risk to the community of Jasper.
Residents are concerned for their own safety and that of the visitors and the security of their homes.
With a high risk of wildfires fueled by a forest devastated by the pine beetle, have the Liberals put a plan in place to protect this park.
The Honorable Minister of the Environment and Climate Change.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Our government is absolutely committed to the ecological integrity of our national parks.
That is my first priority as a minister.
We are working very hard in all of our parks, including Jasper National Park.
I look forward to talking to the member further about this and seeing how we can move forward.
Thank you.
I'm only speculating why he would do that.
But back in 2017, he was saying we've got to do something about the town to keep it safe.
And in 2022, the Jasper National Park Management Plan said, we've got to clear out this pine beetle deadfall.
We've got to do controlled burns.
We have to clear out the trees and then plant seedlings so we have some young growth here.
Almost none of that happened.
And then predictably, Jasper burns.
Do you think the feds are going to take any responsibility for any of this?
No.
What a dumb question, Sheila.
No, I mean, one, them not doing it obviously proves their incompetence.
And when the fire started and, you know, not really focusing on it as much as they should have right away, which sure sounds like a bold accusation, but I think it's true.
Again, shows incompetence.
But again, like it could also show that maybe they wanted Alberta to burn.
Just a theory I'm working on here.
Like it'd make Danielle Smith look stupid.
And the opposite has happened.
But there's many ways to look at it like that.
And why would they take responsibility if they're incompetent?
And two, if they wanted Alberta to burn.
And those are just two ifs.
We were on a press conference today.
We raced down the logging road to try to get reception because we got an email saying that Stephen Gilbeau and the CEO of Parks Canada would be holding a joint press conference.
And I thought, okay, great.
I'm going to ask a question.
Why isn't this press conference an announcement of you two resigning?
But they never took my question, obviously.
We listened to four people from the CBC ask questions from like CBC, CBC Radio Canada, CBC Edmonton French, and something else.
And then at least three people from Postmedia, David Staples, whom I like, asked a good question about, you know, if Parks Canada had been choosing nature over people, which I think they have been.
And I think another mainstream media outlet, there were no independent journalists questions that were taken whatsoever.
And I think they held that press conference to get out in front of that Blacklocks article that was released today.
We're recording this Monday night that said that Parks Canada and Stephen Gilbo had plenty of warning about what was going to happen in Jasper.
You sat there with me as I sat through that press conference.
What did you think?
I wish that question from the guy that you mentioned, I already forgot it.
David Staples.
David Staples.
I wish he had brought in DEI to the park, the park president.
Because not only do I also believe that they choose nature over people, but they choose certain people over other people.
Or at least that they say they do, and that's their big focus.
There will never be a place for discrimination in Parks Canada or for misogyny, bigotry, homophobia, transphobia, or any other kind of hatred.
There will never be room for that in Parks Canada.
I won't accept it.
You won't accept it.
We won't accept it.
Not now, not tomorrow, and not ever.
Not in Parks Canada.
Never in Parks Canada.
Saving nature and saving, or and looking a certain way.
And that just shows the testament to everything that we deal with in our government.
And again, you know, not, I watched you raise your hand as everyone needs to raise their hand like they're in class.
You were the second person to do it.
And it almost as if they skipped over you or they went backwards to forward because I think the guy that asked that question, he was like, he was closer to the end.
They had to have seen you.
Yeah.
Had to have.
Yeah, for sure they did.
Yeah, because it showed, I watched it and it said whoever, whoever, plus 12 others raised their hand.
And she's like, we have over hundreds of people.
It's like, I see 12 people with their hands up and there's 11 questions.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Yeah, it was, I knew they wouldn't get to me.
I was actually surprised that they even let me tune into that call because we weren't on the media release list.
I got it from an insider, let's just say.
I don't want to out him.
But you are right to raise the DEI issue because a controlled burn in Banff National Park last year got out of control and it was their DEI all-women firefighter unit that did it.
And the CEO of Parks Canada, he's always lecturing Canadians about bigotry and, you know, celebrating pride in the national park.
So if you were a visible minority, if you're a person like me who identifies as having a disability, if you are neurodivergent, like my daughter is, if you are a member of Two Spirit LGBTQ2 community, or someone from one or more equity deserving groups, please know this from your Parks Canada family.
We see you, we hear you, we value and love you, and we need you.
There will always be a place for you in Parks Canada.
We are stronger together, not despite our differences.
We are stronger together because of our differences.
And that is why I love Parks Canada.
And really, they should have been just doing the basic environmental stewardship that needs to be done when you want people to live in harmony with nature.
And they didn't do it.
They just didn't do it.
Their own data says they didn't do it.
Yeah, we need gay women and black firefighters, but really we just need people who can fight fires.
Right.
It doesn't matter what the hell you are.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's just, it's just so bizarre that that was the focus.
And I do believe the blame for this hangs squarely around the CEO of Parks Canada's neck, Stephen Gilbo, because the buck stops with him and Catherine McKenna, the previous environment minister, who basically laughed off conservative warnings in 2017.
But like all liberal scandals, I think they're probably going to skate.
I think you're exactly right.
And it is interesting that Stephen Gilbo, who loves to run his yap about Premier Danielle Smith and how she doesn't care about the environment, his incompetence caused destruction to the environment just now.
And it was Danielle Smith bringing all the resources she possibly could to help him out of the mess he created.
Parks Canada has been taking care of Jasper National Park now for almost a century.
The park became an official national park in 1930.
We have, as both Ron and I have mentioned, we have Parks Canada staff who live there, who call Jasper their home, quite a number of them.
And to think that over all those decades, we would not have deployed all of the resources necessary to try and do everything that is humanly possible to protect a town from a forest fire is simply not true.
On talked about prescribed burns, clearing dead trees, clearing a wide buffer zone around the town of Jasper.
But as we are seeing in Canada and all around the world, we are seeing more and more aggressive forest fires.
And we certainly saw that in the summer of 2023.
And this is what we were faced with.
And the fact that we were able to protect 70% of the town speaks to all of those measures we have put in place over the years.
And frankly.
I think that they focus so much on like the hot topics of like, you know, fighting oil pipelines or bringing in hybrid or electric cars that I wonder if this was just at the bottom of their list and it always was.
Like Catherine McKenna, maybe she's like, you know, I'm on my way out.
I'm not going to care about the pine beetle needles and the pine needles in the banff and Jasper or whatever.
Again, it just, it sounds like to me, coming from my Ontario part of my mind, that's like, oh, I'll deal with that later.
And look what happened.
They'll deal with it later because it's in Alberta and they don't care about Alberta.
I think that's really what it is.
And, you know, for everybody who says that Danielle Smith doesn't care, that she's somehow responsible for any of this, I reiterate the park is federal jurisdiction.
And despite lefty internet rumors promulgated on X, she increased the wildfire budget by 50% in Alberta.
And it's the highest it's ever been.
And thank God for that because the feds didn't do anything.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Fair enough.
You just want me to agree.
I do.
I just, do you agree with me?
Yeah.
Now.
Hello, Premier Smith.
Thank you for taking my question.
So your government over the last few years has made various cuts to Alberta's wildfire fighting budget.
Do you regret making those cuts now?
Why, why not?
Well, look, I mean, my first firefighting season was last year.
And what we did in response to that was we increased the firefighting budget by 50%.
In 2023-4, it was $100.4 million.
In 24-25, we increased it to $155.4 million.
And that's the highest it's ever been.
And there's a reason for that is that we knew that we needed to get some of the equipment and change some of the practices, as Minister Lowen had mentioned.
We declared the start of forest fire season early.
We had all of our personnel hired and in place by April 15th, which is May 15th, by May 15th.
And in addition to that, because of the amount of damage that we saw last year, when I first came in, we had a billion-dollar contingency.
My first budget, we increased that to a $1.5 billion contingency.
And this budget we increased to a $2 billion contingency.
Raising Funds for Jasper00:01:42
So there is no limit to the amount of money that we will spend to make sure that we have the resources that we need and to make sure that we have the money available to assist with the recovery.
So I would say that we've looked at the lessons of the past and we made the appropriate amount of investment in this budget here.
We're here in a campsite just outside of Hinton.
We're here on the cheap.
We drove my Jeep.
We're staying in my little tiny travel trailer and we're eating beef out of my freezer.
So our costs are really quite low for this, although it is very hard work and it's definitely not a vacation.
The real reason we're here is because we want to raise funds to help the people of Jasper rebuild because what has been taken from them can never be replaced.
But we can help them build something new.
And we invite our viewers to support our efforts at helpjasper.ca.
That's a 100% charitable crowdfund.
None of the money comes to us at Rebel News.
It will go directly to a charitable partner working on the ground with the people in Jasper where it belongs.
So if you would like to throw your money behind the people of Jasper, they need some help, please go to helpjasper.ca.
Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight.
Thanks as always for tuning in.
You will not see me in the same place next week.
Hopefully, I'll be back at home.
Thanks so much for tuning in.
Thanks to everybody who works behind the scenes to put the show together.
Thanks, Kian, for working so hard and roughing it with me this last couple of days.