Ontario is on Fire

People in Toronto are waking up to the worst air quality on Earth. Collins First Nation is gone. People are being evacuated from their homes by boat. Workers are being trapped in rail cars, and mainly Indigenous Nations across Ontario are being evacuated and threatened by wildfire.Maybe you’re one of the people who hated it when Last Generation Canada was trying to raise the alarm on this by blocking bridges, blocking access to airports, or taking disruptive action at art galleries and museums. Maybe you didn’t see the point, or you thought that we were going about this the wrong way, or that our tactics were polarizing and ineffective.Doug Ford cut $42 million from firefighting this year, as well as $4 million from disaster preparedness. This follows a cut of 67% from 2019. The federal government spent more money on the FIFA World Cup this year than on actually improving wildfire fighting capacity for the provinces.The reason I’m bringing this up is that, clearly, the suffering of everyday people is not enough for a government to care enough to do something.Over 200,000 people were already evacuated across Canada in 2023. We’ve been seeing Indigenous communities burn for years with little press coverage. Even when the tourist hotspot, the national gem of Jasper, burned down, the most this galvanized from our leadership was crocodile tears from Danielle Smith and prayers for rain.They know what is coming, yet they refuse to prepare us.The demand that they had for the actions that they took was quite simple. Actual disaster protection funded by those who are most responsible, the billionaire class. Increased firefighting capacity. Disaster preparedness and prevention.It’s an absolute no-brainer, yet they still won’t do it.Instead, the Carney government has passed three new pipelines in the past two weeks and openly given up on our emissions targets.I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the exact same thing with a different town or community on fire as the reason to speak out.What’s happening today is absolutely devastating, but it’s going to continue to happen on a significantly larger scale until something drastic changes.Our government is being incredibly clear with us. They do not care about protecting us. They are openly throwing gasoline on this fire.We are blowing past points of no return. We need to figure out how to protect each other and how to protect ourselves because, at this point, our government has made it abundantly clear that they just won’t. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit quietcanines.substack.com/subscribe