Need to Know: Sick of wildfire smoke? Blame the B.C. government

Welcome to Need to Know, The Hub’s twice-weekly roundup of expert insights into the biggest economic stories, political news, and policy developments Hub readers need to be keeping their eyes on.

Eby’s NDP government didn’t cause the wildfires, but they haven’t done enough to prevent them either

By Kirk LaPointe, The Hub’s B.C. correspondent

For the first time, I have a wildfire in my electoral riding, on five hectares up the highway in Squamish, but not far enough up the highway to dispel worry about the real summer ahead. A state of emergency has some residents on evacuation alert.

It is not yet mid-June, but we have already exceeded the 2024 total area burned by forest fires in Canada—three times the historic level. One fire in northern B.C. smouldered all winter. Environment Canada forecasts a hot few months and notes the lower-than-usual precipitation preceding them. Orange skies are coming, bringing the smoky season upon us.

What stands for a wildfire strategy in British Columbia can be more appropriately called a wildfire tactic. Nine times the public funds are spent on suppression over prevention. There are few prescribed burns to manage fuel buildup. There is problematic short-staffing and burnout in the firefighting field. There has been no meaningful Indigenous consultation to benefit from its history of forest stewardship. There have been episodes of questionable community coordination during evacuations. There are serious questions about the data used to assess risk and predict fires. It is a mostly command-and-control operation that dispatches crews when hell breaks loose.

For a province that positioned itself so proudly in recognizing and establishing policy on climate change, the forest fire strategy lacks the same proactive sophistication. It cries for investment in early detection, encouraging climate-adapted landscape planning, in modernizing the emergency response, and in managing the forest before it burns beyond our means to live with it.

Jack’s out of the box, and everybody has an idea

By Patrice Dutil, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and author of Sir John A. Macdonald and the Apocalyptic Year of 1885

Yesterday, the Sir John A. Monument at the southern tip of Queen’s Park in Toronto saw the light of day for the first time in years. The statue, just outside the provincial legislature, had been put under a crude plywood box out of concern that it would be further damaged by the sort of violent gangs that had wrecked the statues of Egerton Ryerson on Gould Street and Macdonald’s on Canada Square in Montreal in the summer of 2021.

After four years, it could be an opportunity for a reacquaintance with the man who had played a key role in the founding and expansion of Canada. Macdonald was elected and re-elected with six majorities—an unequalled record of political support in Canadian history—and was prime minister for nearly 20 years.

Most people simply want the monument restored. Others wish that it would come with a variety of explanatory plaques. But that was too much for the Globe and Mail’s editorial board, it seemed. It proposed that a monument to Indigenous victims also be erected near the Macdonald statue so as to serve as a visual reminder of Macdonald’s works. The idea was to create a permanent face-to-face with “those he harmed.”

It’s nothing short of an insult to the man’s memory. Let’s hope his steely presence among us continues to generate the kind of conversation his accomplishments deserve, good and bad. Let’s see a monument to the Indigenous people of the province, but one pointing to its own hopes and aspirations.

Carney’s defence announcement casts a lot of light—but not a lot of heat

By Richard Shimooka, a Hub contributing writer and a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s defence spending announcement was generally well-received by many within the Department of National Defence, who saw it as acknowledging the seriousness of the challenge ahead.

Hitting Canada’s 2-percent NATO commitment was never in doubt—the forthcoming start of major naval programs like the River Class Destroyer and other programs will ensure Canada reaches the threshold by 2032; the question was whether the ramp-up could be accelerated. This announcement offers the rough contours of a path to do just that.

This timing is no accident. Carney is about to host the G7 in Alberta in the next several days, as well as attend a NATO summit in the next month, and showing up with a commitment to hit 2 percent this year avoids the highly contentious meetings over the issue with fellow allies which his predecessor had to endure over the past decade.

Nevertheless, both publicly and internally, the details are scant. The increased spending will likely consist of some combination of national procurement money (essentially munitions, stores, and other consumables), a salary bump for service members, infrastructure spending, and some long-term investments in R&D and industrial capacity.^{1Not stated, but there’s discussion about acquiring an additional tranche of supply ships for the Navy, but the timeline for such vessels is likely past 2030.}

The most notable increase is essentially an accounting trick: bringing the Canadian Coast Guard under the defence spending umbrella. There was some language indicating greater securitization of the Coast Guard’s role, which, in isolation, is a good idea and closer to the norm internationally. However, it’s not going to make a significant difference in Canada’s actual ability to provide defence, or heighten our profile among allies—Canada’s military will remain deficient in most of its major capabilities due to obsolescent and/or insufficient capabilities for at least the next five years, if not a decade.

This is the real challenge: announcements like Monday’s are mostly for political consumption. While it is a promising start, the actual impact on Canada’s defence output is likely to be limited.

As I noted in January, the core issue is a lack of capacity to execute on programs within the DND. The announcement reflects that reality. It will take years to build up the government’s ability to execute on major projects, given that it requires the decades-long cultivation of highly trained personnel and a streamlined system that allows them to operate unhindered. Until that occurs, the actual ability to change the direction of Canada’s defence will remain challenged.

Modi is invited to Kananaskis—this is our chance to press the reset button

By Alisha Rao, The Hub’s content coordinator

There are many elephants in the room when it comes to the Canada-India relationship. Relations have cratered since 2023, and a reset is very much needed. How will Prime Minister Mark Carney read this room and begin to clear out the elephants?

The reception of Carney’s decision to invite Modi to the G7 summit has been mixed. At home, Liberal MP Sukh Dhaliwal (whose B.C. riding of Surrey–Newton has many Sikh constituents) said the invitation sends “the wrong message.”

Meanwhile, abroad, The Hindustan Times has written about the invitation being a step in the right direction. Radio India managing director Maninder Gill argued the Sikh diasporic view in Canada on the visit “does not represent the Sikh community.”

Carney said there were “conditions” on the invitation, and that he agreed to a “law enforcement dialogue” with Modi. Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand has also commented that this invitation does not detract from the ongoing investigation into India. In September 2023, Justin Trudeau alleged the Indian government was directly linked to the murder of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, which began the cratering of Canada-India relations. Since 2023, India has consistently refuted any claims that Indian officials were linked to the murder.

When Modi arrives, it will be important to use this opportunity as a chance to reset the dialogue between Canada and India. The need to separate diaspora politics from actual policy is critical. Bringing the conversation back to bilateral trade relations will be beneficial to Canada’s Indo-Pacific strategy.

Carney’s invitation sends a clear signal: it is in Canada’s broader national interest to be on good terms with India. The Indian ministry of external affairs has considered reinstating its high commissioner to Canada, which would be one step in working towards resolving outstanding issues between the two countries.

Any attempt to smooth over the fractious relationship between the two countries should be welcome.