LETTER – Criticizing Trump on smoke issue ignores management failures
(Image: Abbott-Chapman report)
I am writing to respond to your editorial, “Sorry, Donald Trump, but put this in your pipe and smoke it.”
Contrary to the piece’s claims, the criticism of B.C.’s forest management is not “whataboutism.” B.C.’s forest management has suffered from a century-long failure of fire suppression, debris pileups, delayed hazard assessments, and inadequate prescribed burning and fuel reduction. This situation has been worsened by a political roller coaster and an economy based on outsourcing.
B.C.’s own Forest Practices Board has criticized the status quo, highlighting late and incomplete assessments, rules that allow logging slash to sit for 30 months, the exclusion of municipalities from high-risk interface zones, and forestry practices that hinder wildfire defense.
This issue is not about climate change denial; it is about demanding smarter policies, a real technology of behaviour incentives for thinning, aggressive debris removal, and controlled burns before the next megafire impacts the U.S., B.C., and Kamloops. Dismissing these real, documented failures in B.C. forest management to criticize Trump ignores the province’s own oversight reports. The current approach represents a negligent management style that costs billions and impacts public health and homes.
It is time for a fact-based discussion and better active management, including fuel reduction, debris cleanup, and prescribed burns.
WALTER TRKLA
ArmchairMayor.ca 
I didn’t think that Mel’s focus was on BC’s/ Canada’s Forest management practices – good, bad or indifferent. I think the point he was making – an accurate one – is that the orange idiot is just that – an idiot! Despite Trumps’s assertion that Canada is willfully invading the US with wildfire smoke, smoke is actually blown on the winds. Honest, Mr Trump, Canada has not gone out of our way to burn down our forests and communities in order to inconvenience our neighbours to the south. No more than the US intentionally sets fires to send wildfire smoke north to Canada. Currently wildfire smoke from Washington and Oregon fires is coming north of the border into B.C. Is it being sent intentionally as payback?! As many have pointed out, in the past there has been cooperation between the two countries in times of natural disasters and weather events. Maybe Trump should focus on helping rather than whining and threatening financial penalties. If he’s unable to do that, maybe he should build a really, really tall wall along the border to stop the smoke. And either build a dome over the entire United States or move the entire population underground. His sycophantic followers who support his idea that Canada should be penalized for smoke drifting south are simply blowing smoke up his skirt.
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Thank you, Mr. Cooper, for reading my letter and for your thoughtful comment.My critique of the editorial was never intended as “whataboutism” or an attempt to shield Donald Trump. It was a call for intellectual honesty and practical understanding: British Columbia has well-documented, long-standing problems in forest management, fire suppression policies, excessive slash piles, delayed hazard assessments, and insufficient fuel reduction and prescribed burns, that are contributing to the wildfire risks we all face.
These issues predate any particular U.S. president and are detailed in the province’s own Forest Practices Board reports. Addressing them aggressively is in everyone’s interest, regardless of one’s views on climate change or Trump.
You asked what I am doing at 84 beyond writing letters. For 35 years I taught environmental issues and critical thinking at the secondary and post-secondary level, including courses that covered climate trends, Milankovitch cycles, industrialization and CO₂ balance, shifting isotherms, glacier retreat, sea-level rise, changing fire regimes, pine beetle impacts, and more.
I steward a scholarship at Thompson Rivers University (TRU) for students pursuing environmental studies, precisely to encourage the next generation to move from awareness to concrete action. Anyone can contribute to it. How about it?
Earlier, as a member of PROBE BC, I helped push successfully for scrubbers on industrial stacks (Weyerhaeuser, Afton Mine, and the refinery) to reduce heavy metals in the Kamloops watershed and address spikes in childhood leukemia.
I agree we can and must do better on forest management. Better active management, thinning, debris removal, updated rules on slash, and expanded prescribed burns, does not require waiting for perfect global climate consensus. It requires political will and public pressure right here in B.C.
I’m happy to support or help connect with practical efforts. If you or others are already working on an action plan, lobbying MLAs and federal ministers, or forming a focused group on fuel reduction and interface protection, I’d be interested in learning more.
Constructive pressure on our own governments is how real improvements happen on the ground. Let’s focus on solutions that protect communities, jobs, forests, and public health on both sides of the border. Better management here is something we can influence directly.
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The forest in Canada had been mismanaged for hundreds of years. Beavers kept things wet but were over trapped. Allowing American,British and B.C millionaires to tell us their ideas for management was suicide. We still leave a criminal amount of waste in the bush while billionaires who profess to be Canadian , strip mine the easy stuff and leave the province, move equipment to a country that is threatening us after laying off the employees and whining about lack of fibre. Canfor is a poor corporate citizen.
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Thanks for the reply. Respectfully…..As I feared no specific action plans just more word salad. You would make a great politician.
Cooper
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Thanks for in formative letter. Besides writing letter what specifically are you
doing to have better active management, including fuel reduction, debris cleanup, and prescribed burns.
please list who have contacted in both the provincial and federal government to start your discussion?
Are you willing to start a group to lobby governments to rectify the problem. Ie put your money where your mouth is?
Me I just don’t like Trump and yes climate change is real. Yes We could do better in forest management.
Excellent letter now put together an action plan to get something done.
Cooper
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