The federal government and the media routinely link wildfires to climate change but statistics from Nova Scotia attribute the blame to arson in over 50 percent of cases.
Responding to disbelief that there can be any correlation between hiking and wildfires, Liberal New Brunswick Premier Sue Holt admitted there wasn’t any but warned that it could be dangerous for offenders to spend time in the great outdoors because they wouldn’t get rescued if they broke a leg.
Holt said people are asking her how “going for a walk in the woods is going to cause a fire," to which she clarified, "I can understand why people think that that's ridiculous. But the reality is, it's not that you might cause a fire. It's that if you're out there walking in the woods and you break your leg, we're not going to come and get you, because we have emergency responders that are out focused on a fire that is threatening the lives of New Brunswickers. And if you take your boat out fishing in a pond in Crown land and you capsize, we're not going to be able to come and help you out,” she said Monday.
On Wednesday, Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston added his justification, asking "How would you like to be stuck in the woods when there's a fire burning around you?"
In what’s been dubbed a “climate lockdown” by critics, two Canadian provinces have banned hiking, fishing, camping in the woods. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are fining people up to $25,000 for violating that ban. In Newfoundland and Labrador, the ban was initially just on campfires but on Wednesday that order expanded to the use of offroad vehicles.
The provinces are justifying the ban due to extensive wildfires in Atlantic Canada, but critics wonder just how walking in the woods can pose a fire hazard. On Friday, a Canadian Armed Forces veteran deliberately defied the government edict in Nova Scotia.
The provincial government fined Jeff Evely a whopping $28,872.50.
“Seems there are taxes and fees and victim surcharges,” Evely told Joe Warmington of the Toronto Sun, to explain why the ticket exceeded the $25,000 promised by the province for anyone violating their law.
https://twitter.com/JeffEvely/status/1953971918312251707
The Justice Foundation for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) is assisting Evely to challenge his conviction. JCCF lawyer Marty Moore told The Post Millennial that the anti-hiking ban has no justification.
“You know, expressly outlined in the Charter [of Rights and Freedoms], there's something called liberty, and your liberty interest is your freedom to go and move about without the government penning you in. But you know, 50 percent of the land in New Brunswick, for example, is public land.
"You're not allowed to set foot on that land now, so you know 50 percent of the land is off limits to you as a tax paying citizen of New Brunswick, and in Nova Scotia, you can't even go to your neighbor's house and walk through their woods, because the private land is also covered by the ban in Nova Scotia and so yes, the concept of liberty extends that far, but even broader, you expect your government to act reasonably. That is the basic baseline of this and this ban on people walking in the woods doesn't even pass that deferential standard of just being reasonable,” he said.
Criticism and ridicule of the ban is rampant on social media as many Canadians fear the hiking ban could expand to other provinces like Ontario, where wildfires are also prevalent.
Entrances to provincial pathways are actually being blocked with barricades that include the yellow tape that is used at murder scenes.
https://twitter.com/CaitHemming/status/1955417660960944524
The federal government and the media routinely link wildfires to climate change but statistics from Nova Scotia attribute the blame to arson in over 50 percent of cases. Climate change is not even cited as a source. And despite the constant frenzy about wildfires being the “new normal,” the federal government has failed to deliver on former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s promise of hiring more firefighters and buying more water bombers.
And the worst year for wildfires in Canada was in 1989, long before governments pointed to the climate change crisis as the source of numerous weather patterns and natural disasters.
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