For over eight years, the Ford government has put the rich and powerful ahead of the people and places we love — from handing the Greenbelt to PC donors to gutting our conservation authorities. Now, as wildfires rage across the province, that failure to fund and fairly pay our wildland firefighters is putting lives at risk.

This summer, nearly 200 wildfires are burning across northern Ontario, 72 of them out of control, forcing ten communities to evacuate and shutting down highways across the Northwest. Hundreds of people have been rescued from campsites, the military has been called in, and for days southern Ontario has had some of the worst air quality in the world. Last year was the worst fire season on record, with nearly 600,000 hectares burned—and this year is on track to be even worse.

Yet Doug Ford cut the emergency firefighting fund to $150 million, after the province spent $271 million battling fires last year. Ontario’s wildland firefighters are the lowest paid in Canada, leaving the province short almost a quarter of the crews it needs. 

This is the climate crisis, and everyday Ontarians deserve a government that’s going to protect the people and places we love. The system is rigged against everyday people, but we need to fight back.

• Get oil and gas corporations out of our pockets by investing in renewable energy.
• Fund the fight against wildfires: reverse the cut, budget for the fire seasons we actually face, pay wildland firefighters fairly, and invest in prevention and Indigenous-led fire management.
• Permanently protect the Greenbelt and hold the rich and powerful accountable.
• Create a permanent Foodbelt to stop corporations from paving over our farmland.
• Reverse conservation authority cuts and forced amalgamations to restore independent watershed protection across Ontario.

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