Multiple arsonists have been arrested in connection with the wildfires in Canada which have enveloped U.S. states from New York to Minnesota in thick smoke and haze.
“Several arsonists have been arrested in the past weeks in different provinces for lighting forest fires,” People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier tweeted. “But the lying woke media and politicians keep repeating that global warming is the cause.”
Amid hundreds of wildfires in recent months, Royal Canadian Mounted Police have arrested arsonists in Nova Scotia, Yukon, British Columbia, and Alberta.
One Alberta resident, John Cook, was charged with 10 counts of arson after setting a string of wildfires in and around Cold Lake, a hamlet near Edmonton, local reports say. In addition to damaging vehicles and structures, Cook was charged with setting a fire at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Cherry Grove.
Despite the arrests, major media outlets and the Biden administration are attributing the wildfires to climate change.
The White House said in a statement issued on June 8: "This morning, millions of Americans are experiencing the effects of smoke resulting from devastating wildfires burning in Canada, another stark reminder of the impacts of climate change."
Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addressed the crisis with words:
'We’re seeing more and more of these fires because of climate change. ... 'We’ll keep working – here at home and with partners around the world – to tackle climate change and address its impacts,' he said on Twitter.
The media choir used the same hymnbook.“Rise in extreme wildfires linked directly to emissions from oil companies in new study,” the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reported.
“Canadian forest fires are the latest costly climate disaster that public accounts fail to capture,” another CBC headline read.
“Climate change is increasing the risks of wildfires in the country, experts say,” Global News claimed.
LifeSite News noted: "Notably, the mainstream media outlets attributing the increase of wildfires to climate change have received funding from the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, which is actively pushing for increased bans on using natural resources in Canada to combat 'climate change.' "
Meanwhile, statistics from the Canadian National Fire Database reveal that wildfires across Canada have decreased in recent years, having peaked in 1989.
More than 160 fires have been reported in Quebec alone, including at least 114 that are out of control.
Along with arson, many are attributing the fires to poor forest management by Canadian authorities. Critics say too few controlled burns are being performed to clear the forest of flammable surplus.
In 2020, four scientists wrote a paper published in Progress in Disaster Science in which they said not enough money was being spent by Canada on managing forests.
"Wildfire management agencies in Canada are at a tipping point," the scientists wrote. "Presuppression and suppression costs are increasing but program budgets are not."
Smoke from the Canada wildfires is "currently turning the sky orange" and "taking our tolerance to new levels," the New York Post's Miranda Devine noted on June 7.
"By Wednesday we were registering the worse air pollution of any major city in the world and Covid mask maniacs were back in their element," Devine wrote. "But don’t fall for the propaganda that climate change is to blame. The situation in Canada is similar to that in Australia, where green ideology and chronic government underfunding mean that the forests currently ablaze have not been managed properly for years."
Free Press International
[Freedom Is Not Free!]
