Ford Reminds American Critics That Smoke, Like Memory, Drifts Both Ways
Ontario Premier Doug Ford took a moment this week to inform U.S. politicians grumbling about Canadian wildfire response that they have, and this is a direct quote, "a very short memory."
The memory in question apparently ends somewhere around last Tuesday, when Americans were happy to accept Canadian water bombers, Canadian firefighters, and Canadian mutual-aid agreements that have been quietly running since before most current U.S. senators learned to spell Saskatchewan. Ford, a man not previously known for his encyclopedic recall of anything not printed on a Ford Fest hot dog wrapper, has become the country's unlikely historian of cross-border favours.
The complaints from Washington centre on smoke drifting into the Midwest, which continues to hang over several states according to NPR. The proposed solution, as best anyone can tell, is for Canada to try harder, possibly by asking the fires nicely. One congressman reportedly suggested the boreal forest should "get its act together," a policy position that assumes trees read Politico.
Ford's counter-argument was less policy than pub. He noted that Canadian crews have crossed the border to fight American fires for decades without demanding a thank-you card, though he stopped short of itemizing the invoice. Aides confirm he is workshopping a longer version for next week involving the War of 1812, which he considers recent.
Meanwhile, air quality in the U.S. Northeast is improving, meaning the political outrage will now migrate west with the jet stream, exactly like the smoke everyone claims to be surprised by.