“Canada had the most polluted air in 2023 of any North American country, according to a new air quality report. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is blamed for last year’s bungled federal response to the annual fire season, which burned roughly 18.5 million hectares of land,” reports Rebel News.
“Wildfires in the summer of 2023 devastated air quality throughout not only Canada, but also the United States as well due to transboundary haze and air pollution that drifted across borders,” said Natasha Ganes of IQAir North America.
Fine particulate matter concentration rose from 7.4 to 10.3, driven by the extreme fire season. Large wildfires near the northwestern Canadian city of Yellowknife raised the concentration of PM2.5 from 4.63 between 2017 and 2021 to 20.8 in 2023, requiring the evacuation of 20,000 residents.
PM2.5 particles are fine particulate matter that measure 2.5 microns or less across — typically produced by burning gasoline, oil, diesel fuel or wood. They are measured in numbers of micrograms per cubic meter of air.
Rebel News reports that critics of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “argue Ottawa’s scatterbrained response to the record-breaking wildfire season added fuel to the fire unnecessarily.” Around 46 million acres of land burned last year, far exceeding the 19 million acres consumed in another bad year for wildfires, 1989 .
“2023 marks the first time in our report’s history that Canada had such high levels of PM2.5,” Ganes says. The vast majority of the 10 most polluted cities in Canada were in hard-hit Alberta, says the 2023 IQAir World Air Quality Report.
“At the onset of last year’s fire season, the prime minister disregarded concerns that his failure to update federal forest management policies, upgrade firefighting facilities, and implement a national firefighting service contributed to the carnage,” reports Rebel News.
“In August, well into the wildfire season, the Trudeau finally admitted to issues with the Liberals’ infrastructure funding. ‘I think we need to start looking at that around emergencies, we certainly need to look at that around infrastructure investments,’ Trudeau said.”
“Indigenous groups have complained that forest management officials prevented them from performing prescribed burns. Alongside forest experts in B.C., they have been calling for more resources to combat wildfires. ‘It’s as simple as lighting a match. But…they want heavy equipment on the site,’ said former Yuneŝit’in government chief Russell Myers Ross in a 2021 interview. ‘They want big hoses; they want a lot of equipment and high-priced personnel.’
