Canadian Fires

Towering plumes of smoke fill the sky as firefighting helicopters battle fast-moving wildfires in western Canada.

The massive blazes are sending smoke south, triggering air quality alerts across more than a dozen U.S. states, including Washington, D.C., as officials warn… pic.twitter.com/uLcDG1lERW

— Fox News (@FoxNews) July 18, 2026

U.S. Senator Plans to Introduce Bill to Hold Canada Responsible for Wildfire Smoke:

U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno on Friday released text of legislation that would sanction Canadian government officials, block their assets and revoke their visas over wildfire smoke that has repeatedly fouled the air in Ohio and across the United States.

The Westlake Republican’s bill, formally titled the “Countering Atmospheric Nuisances Arising from Drifting Airborne Foreign Incendiary Residual Emissions Act” or the CANADA FIRE Act, is scheduled for introduction in the Senate on July 20.

“Thanks to Canada’s failed leadership, Ohio’s skies are seeing the worst pollution on record and Ohioans across the state are being subjected to hazardous conditions – we will not tolerate this incompetence,” said a statement from Moreno. “My bill will declare an emergency, sanction all Canadian officials responsible, and study a victims compensation fund driven by imposing additional tariffs.”

President Trump is on the same page:

President Donald Trump on Friday called the smoke pollution from Canada’s wildfires affecting the United States from the Great Lakes to the mid-Atlantic “totally unacceptable” and said the costs the U.S. is incurring will be added to tariffs on Canada.

Trump took to Truth Social in the afternoon, after departing a very hazy Washington, DC, where a heavy smell of smoke is prevalent.

“We are holding Canada responsible for the fact that they are not properly maintaining their Forests, and Brush therein, and the United States is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air, the quality of which is dangerous, and totally unacceptable!” Trump said.

The president added that he will speak to Prime Minister Mark Carney, and that costs will be added to tariffs.

“I will call the Prime Minister during the day to find out what they are going to do about it. The cost is incalculable! Canada has refused to engage in basic Forest Management and Debris Removal, knowing that such refusal will lead to exactly this result,” Trump said.

Prime Minister Carney fired back:

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney dismissed the possibility that his government could be doing more to contain the out-of-control wildfires ravaging Ontario this week and sending toxic smoke down to flood much of the American Midwest and Northeast, demanding the United States do more to fight alleged “climate change.”

The comments, made during a press conference in Ontario, are Carney’s first in the aftermath of a torrent of outrage in the United States as millions of people were told not to leave their homes on Thursday to avoid becoming sick from inhaling Canadian fire smoke. Disillusion at the inaction by the Canadian government is also reportedly growing among the First Nations communities most directly affected by the fires, including some that have burned to the ground entirely and found little to no support from Ottawa.

. . . A group of Michigan Republican lawmakers — Reps. Jack Bergman (R-MI), John James (R-MI), Lisa McClain (R-MI), and John Moolenaar (R-MI) — published a letter to Carney on Wednesday demanding concrete action and condemning the Canadian government for ignoring pleas from American officials to properly address forest management.

“We were told last year that this would be treated with urgency. It was not,” they wrote. “We were told the causes, chronic under-investment in forest thinning, fuel reduction, and prescribed burns, along with inadequate enforcement against arson, were being addressed. They were not, or not adequately enough to matter to the people we represent.”

This is clearly a blow to the Canadian self-image. I asked Chrome AI mode, "What is the Canadian self-image vis-a-vis the US?" It answered,

The Canadian self-image vis-à-vis the United States is primarily defined by a "narcissism of minor differences," where Canadians actively shape their national identity by contrasting themselves against American culture, politics, and social policies.

. . . Canadians frequently derive a sense of societal superiority through their institutional differences. Universal, publicly funded healthcare, strict gun control regulations, and a lower rate of violent crime are routinely cited as evidence of a more progressive and orderly society.

. . . While American patriotism is often seen by Canadians as overt and nationalistic, the Canadian self-image favors a quieter, self-deprecating, and subdued pride.

Instead, we have Canadian wildfires blowing smoke across the border, threatening the population's health in much of the eastern US. It's comically significant that Prime Minister Carney answered Trump's criticisms in French. Once upon a time, this would have been a fantastic Saturday Night Live sketch.

It's particularly rich that the fires have been catastrophic for First Nations communities within Canada. On one hand, the indigenous practices of controlled burning in forested areas that made fires less of a threat have been effectively suppressed by the Canadian government:

The mandates of wildfire management agencies in Canada often focus on suppression and do not include ecological land management goals. Because of this, agencies with the skills to potentially implement prescribed fire need other government departments and land users to be proponents for prescribed fire. Even so, in large fire years, the lack of resources to conduct the burns and/or attention to high priority wildfires overrides the ability or political will to conduct prescribed fires.

On the other hand, when the fires overwhelm the same remote indigenous communities that were formerly able to abate the risk via controlled burning, the Canadian government doesn't have the resources to evacuate them or provide disaster relief.

The Namaygoosisagagun (Collins) First Nation watched one blaze largely destroy its entire community in less than an hour, forcing residents to flee by boat. Residents reported having only minutes to gather their belongings before homes were overtaken by the flames on Wednesday, and Anishinabek Nation Grand Council Chief Linda Debassige said in a statement that all community members have been accounted for pending a full assessment.

. . . The Namaygoosisagagun (Collins) First Nation is about 125 miles north of Thunder Bay and inaccessible by road. Debassige told The Canadian Press that residents did not receive advance warning from provincial or national officials, nor did they receive any evacuation support. It’s been reported that community members went ​door-to-door warning their neighbors, and more than two dozen people fled by boat just as the flames approached.

Meaghan Daniel, a lawyer who represents Collins First Nation, told The Canadian Press that residents also are being denied assistance because the national government does not recognize it as a First Nation.

Although residents are recognized as First Nations people under the Indian Act, the community itself is not. Its leaders have long sought official recognition. Daniel sent a letter to Mandy Gull-Masty, the Indigenous Services minister calling on the agency to provide the emergency, recovery, and reconstruction support recognized communities are entitled to.

I think the basic problem is that Canada doesn't have either the resources or the political will to maintain its forests or even to provide evacuation assistance and disaster relief to its citizens. It wil be a major step for Canada even to acknowledge this, but it will then mean fundamentally changing its economic model.