Politicians say a lot about wildfires, except when charges of arson are brought

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There was no social media post from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on X for this bit of news.

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The same goes for Environment Secretary Steven Guilbeault or former Environment Secretary Catherine McKenna.

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But police in Quebec have charged a man with arson for allegedly setting several fires in northern Quebec as part of a major criminal investigation that could be the stuff of movies.

It’s an inconvenient truth that doesn’t get as much attention as the 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 affect everyday life, life and livelihoods, and our air quality. We will continue to work – here at home and with partners around the world – to combat climate change and manage 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 called “numerous wildfires burning in the north of the province early in the summer.”

Brian Paré, of Chibougamau, 700 km north of Montreal, was arraigned in court on Thursday and is being held pending a bail hearing scheduled for Monday. It will be interesting to see if he finds it as difficult to obtain bail as it did for Tamara Lich for her alleged mischief involving the Ottawa Freedom Convoy.

Catching Paré was no easy task. Sûreté du Québec Sgt. Hugues Beaulieu told CBC investigators they received help from “behavior analysts, criminal profilers and forensic psychologists” and after “several weeks of investigation, members of the SQ’s Major Crimes Unit were able to catch the man.”

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This was excellent police work. As I reported in June, the Quebec provincial police were always up to date and unaffected by political winds.

The CBC reports that the defendant “allegedly set fire to a fishing cabin on May 31 and forests in the area between July 8 and September 5,” in an area where more than 7,500 people were evacuated.

None of this has been tested in court. These claims do not explain every fire in a year that has been very bad for wildfires. All of this must be proven in court. Environmental activists don’t have that burden when they use forests or wildfires to advance their climate change agenda, which includes introducing expensive new carbon taxes.

The arson charge in northern Quebec isn’t the only criminal charge related to this summer. Police in Nova Scotia, Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba, British Columbia and the Northwest Territories have tried suspects accused of intentionally setting fires. While some of these cases are dismissed as being within city limits and unrelated, others occurred in or near forests and green spaces.

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The same philosophy that these arsons could not have started wildfires does not apply to the idea that climate change somehow started them. This shows that there are supposedly people who set fires intentionally and others who may do so carelessly.

For those who want to introduce strict climate protection measures that cost and burden the average citizen, but still fly around the world in jets, none of this seems to matter.

And they use every fire as a political wedge to advance their story.

“The extent of these extreme weather events is unknown to our country,” Guilbeault X said in August. “It is an urgent signal that we must take action against the climate crises.”

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And don’t forget McKenna’s famous post on lives threatened, homes destroyed and their communities wiped out… They are the arsonists.”

People like Trudeau, McKenna and Guilbeault often have a lot to say when disaster strikes. But they have not yet commented on people being arrested for arson.

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