Canada Needs to Deal Better with Its Boreal Fires.

For decades, I have feared that the unintended effects of industrial civilization would destabilize our forests, climate, air, soils, waters, biodiversity, and human health.

I am appalled that our various levels of government are doing so little to prevent climate change and destruction of our ecosystems.  Nowhere is the seriousness of the consequences worse than in Canada’s boreal forests.

As you know, those forests are largely populated by Indigenous people.

This summer, as in so many recent years, those forests are aflame.  Thousands of people are being forced to flee for their lives.  The wild animals are forced to remain and suffer.

While governments may temporarily rescue people, their lives will be forever changed by their experiences, especially when they lose their communities and the ecosystems on which they depend.  For wildlife, this situation is an immeasurable disaster.

Our governments need to do much more to protect the homelands of the Indigenous peoples of Canada in perpetuity.  It is no longer acceptable to claim that expansion of industrial activity and economic growth is required.  Quite simply, this is discrimination against the Indigenous people of the boreal forest.  They are being sacrificed on the altar of wealth.

I am saddened by the on-going immoral behaviour of the majority of Canadians, especially leaders of our governments and major corporations.  I hope you will expose and condemn their attitudes and actions.

We now need no more new mines, pipelines, forestry operations.  We need immediate reductions in pollution, especially greenhouse gas emissions, both here and in all other nations.

Tom Dougherty

Ottawa