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There was no social media post on X from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about this little piece of news.
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Same goes from Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault or former Environment Minister Catherine McKenna.
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But police in Quebec have charged a man with arson for several allegedly deliberately set fires in northern Quebec in what was a major criminal investigation that could be the stuff of movies.
It’s an inconvenient truth that is not getting as much attention as plumes of smoke that filled the air and skylines of major cities like New York, Montreal and Toronto in June.
“We’re seeing more and more of these fires because of climate change,” Trudeau posted on June 7. “These fires are affecting everyday routines, lives and livelihoods, and our air quality. We’ll keep working – here at home and with partners around the world – to tackle climate change and address its impacts.”
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But now Quebec police have charged a 37-year-old man with arson in connection with what the CBC reports as “numerous forest fires that burned earlier this summer in the province’s north.”
Brian Paré, of Chibougamau, 700 km north of Montreal, was booked in court Thursday and will be held until a bail hearing scheduled for Monday. It will be interesting to see if he has the same kind of difficultly gaining bail as Tamara Lich did for her alleged mischief connected to the Ottawa Freedom Convoy.
Catching Paré was no easy task. Sûreté du Québec Sgt. Hugues Beaulieu told CBC detectives received help from “behaviour analysis experts, criminal profilers and forensic psychologists” and after “investigating for several weeks, members of the SQ’s major crimes unit were able to nab the man.”
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This was outstanding police work. As I reported in June, the Quebec provincial police were always on this and were not swayed by political winds.
The CBC reports the accused “allegedly set fire to a fishing cabin on May 31 and to forests in the area between July 8 and Sept. 5” in an area that saw more than 7,500 people evacuated.
All of this has not been tested in court. These allegations do not account for every blaze in what has been a very bad year for forest fires. It all has to be proven in court. Environmental activists don’t have that burden when these use forest or wildfires to push their climate change agenda which includes bringing in expensive new carbon taxes.
The arson charge in northern Quebec is not the sole criminal indictment related to this summer. Police in Nova Scotia, Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba, British Columbia and Northwest Territories have suspects before the courts charged with allegedly deliberately starting fires. While some of those cases are dismissed as being within the city limits and not related, some have been in or near forests and green spaces.
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The same philosophy that these arsons could not have started forest fires is not applied that somehow climate change has started them. What this does show is there are allegedly people who will start fires on purpose and there are others who may do it through carelessness.
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WARMINGTON: McKenna blames conservative ‘arsonists’ for many wildfires
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WARMINGTON: Cops suspect arson caused wildfire in at least one part of Quebec
None of this seems to matter to those who want to bring in strict climate change measures that cost and affect average people but still fly around the world on jets themselves.
And they use every fire as a political wedge to push their story.
“The scale of these extreme weather events are unknown to our country,” Guilbeault shared to X in August. “It us an urgent signal that we must act on the climate crises.”
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And don’t forget about McKenna’s famous post to X – which has since been deleted – in which she wrote, “Conservative politicians want to fight about price on a carbon pollution” and “want to make it free to pollute while Canadians pay with their lives threatened, homes destroyed and their communities obliterated … you are the arsonists.”
People like Trudeau, McKenna and Guilbeault often have lots to say when disaster strikes. But on people being arrested on arson charges, they have yet to comment.
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