Tuesday July 8, 2025
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday July 8, 2025
Pipelines Over Prairie Fires: Ford and Smith’s Climate Dodge
Canada aims to protect its economy from renewed trade hostility under President Trump, and Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith have moved quickly to present themselves as defenders of Canadian jobs and interprovincial trade. Today in Calgary, they signed two MoUs centred on energy infrastructure and cross‑province cooperation. But let’s be clear: this is climate dodge, not leadership.
News: Danielle Smith and Doug Ford to sign agreements on energy, trade in Calgary today
The premiers framed their agendas around tariffs and trade barriers. Ford told Ford that “the best way to protect Canadian workers from tariffs and economic uncertainty…is to build infrastructure to get our resources to new markets.” Smith echoed this by criticizing net‑zero rules in a conversation with Prime Minister Mark Carney. All talk of pipelines, rails, and deregulation. All with zero mention of Canada’s environment or climate.
That omission is not just tone‑deaf—it’s dangerous. Alberta isn’t a hypothetical victim of climate change. It’s in crisis. The province is experiencing an eight‑year drought that has drained pastures, ravaged farms, and deepened competition for water resources. Its neighbour, Saskatchewan, is declaring states of emergency in multiple rural municipalities—Maple Creek, Fox Valley, Enterprise and Waverley—because nothing is growing, ranchers are hauling cattle hundreds of kilometres for feed, and crop yields are collapsing.
News: ‘Nothing grew’: 4 southwest Sask. municipalities declare states of emergency due to drought
Meanwhile, widespread wildfires across the Prairies have scorched millions of hectares. Saskatchewan alone has burned over 1.4 million hectares as of early July 2025, while Alberta is approaching 700,000 hectares . These “zombie fires”—wildfires carried through winter into spring—are a hallmark of a climate system gone off-kilter. And yet, Smith and Ford pitch more pipelines.
The public knows this is a sham. Readers have rightly labeled the MoUs a “nothing‑burger,” designed for cameras at the Stampede—not for solving climate or economic threats. Others described Ford and Smith as caring “nothing about the environment” while championing fossil-fuel projects.
Yet the premiers persist, framing climate action as a threat to autonomy and jobs. But this is a false choice. Environmental stewardship is economic stewardship. Building climate resilience creates jobs, stabilizes rural livelihoods, and gets our exports through ports and over borders with a clean‑energy brand.
Canada’s path forward demands far more than photo ops. We need enforceable emissions targets, transition strategies for workers, and water‑secure agriculture. We need to treat canals and pipelines not as relics of a fossil past, but as conduits for renewables, EVs and critical minerals. We need provinces that don’t just say “no” to Ottawa—but say “yes” to the future.
Because if our leaders can ignore a drought that’s breaking farms, wildfires that are burning millions of hectares, and water conflicts that threaten communities…they’re not solving a problem. They are part of it.
Jurassic Premiers
Lately, it feels like politicians of all stripes are tripping over themselves to not talk about the climate crisis—especially with the most climate-denying administration now back in the White House. Even progressive leaders seem afraid to say “climate change” out loud, as if it’s a banned phrase. And the media? You can almost feel the fatigue—eight-year droughts in the Prairies, towns wiped out by wildfires, catastrophic floods that kill dozens… and still, the silence is deafening. Don’t say “atmospheric river” unless you want to be accused of wokeness.
That’s what makes this meeting between Premiers Smith and Ford in Calgary feel like a summit of Canada’s top climate laggards. No real plans, just photo ops and fossil fuel fanfare while the country literally burns and dries out around them.
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