Make Canada a leader in fighting wildfires

TORONTO—As United States President Donald Trump muses about hitting Canada with some kind of retaliatory measure in response to our wildfire smoke, it's worth considering how Canada should respond.

And there actually is a pretty good answer.

This summer has been full of stories about smoke. Toronto was blanketed in it in July, friends in British Columbia report it’s bad there now. But there have also been terrifying and upsetting stories from other parts of the world. France and Spain have been battling major fires. In the U.S., the city of Spokane, Wash., was devastated by a fire that impacted residential areas and destroyed hundreds of structures.

Unfortunately, this seems to be our new normal. So, why not turn Canada into a world leader in combating these disasters?

We already have a ton of expertise. Canadian-built water bomber aircraft are almost ideal for this kind of situation and are in urgent demand all over the world. Greece ordered some just a few years ago. Given our geographic difficulties in fighting fires in remote parts of our own country, a much larger fleet of these aircraft—funded and owned and operated by the federal government—seems like a really good idea.

I'm agnostic on who would operate them. They could fall under the departments of National Defence or Public Safety. It could be the Royal Canadian Air Force, although I suspect the Air Force is not particularly eager to have even more work dumped onto it. In any case, it doesn't really matter—no matter how we ended up organizing it, we could probably claim it as part of our defence spending. That's one argument in favour of making this something the Air Force takes on.

But for me, the advantage here is that it would also give us some real soft power. A fleet of water bombers that could be deployed to assist allies when needed would be a tangible way for Canada to show up and help. 

We already do. Canada, along with many friendly nations, routinely sends support in the form of firefighters or equipment when any of us is threatened by these disasters. So, let's build on that. Let's make Canada a country that has the best people and the best equipment, and lots and lots of both. Let's actually do that thing Canadian politicians love to say we do: punch above our weight.

It would be useful at home during our own domestic emergencies, and it would be a real and tangible commitment to allies when they are in need. Since these aircraft are built in Canada … well, who doesn't like a little bit of domestic spending?

And let's not be naïve. It would also give us some real political clout. Canada, unfortunately, has not been a good ally in recent decades. The Americans are not wrong to be exasperated by us, and the Europeans have certainly become annoyed with us as well. A lot of the credibility we're going to have to earn back is going to come in the form of traditional hard military power. But we can help in other ways. Some kind of specialized firefighting force, whether military or not, is a way that Canada can show that it truly is back and really offer something the world clearly needs more of. 

Not for nothing, but a great response to the next American politician who snarks at us about our wildfires would be footage of a fleet of Canadian planes saving whichever U.S. city is set to be the next Spokane … or Los Angeles, for that matter.

The devil is always in the details, and we would need to work out a lot of them to make this happen: how quickly we could build the planes, how we would pay for them, where we would find and train the crews, where the fleet would be based, and so on. 

But we've got a real problem, a real way to help, and it would provide real spinoff benefits for us. I hope those in power in Ottawa agree.

Matt Gurney is a Toronto-based journalist. He is co-editor of The Line (ReadTheLine.ca), an online magazine. He can be reached at matt@readtheline.ca.

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