A response to the congressional letter on Canadian wildfire smoke
[Photo: the sky near Ashcroft, British Columbia, July 19, 2024. I took this picture myself. The sun is a pale disc behind the smoke, and a STOP sign stands at an empty intersection. This is what wildfire season looks like where I live.]
Last week, four members of the U.S. House of Representatives from Michigan sent a letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney about the wildfire smoke crossing the border. They wrote that “American lungs are paying the price for Canadian inaction.” They warned that if Canada does not act, the United States “will look elsewhere, and act on our own.” One senator went further and promised sanctions against Canadian officials for what he called an atrocity.
I read this letter as a Canadian. I also read it as a Ukrainian. And the language felt familiar in a way that should worry all of us.
For years before the full-scale invasion, the russian president built a story about Ukraine. He claimed that Ukraine was mistreating russian speakers in the East and in Crimea, that Ukraine’s sovereignty came with responsibilities it had failed to meet, and that russia would therefore be justified in acting on its own. The grievance was manufactured, but the structure of the argument was the point: declare your neighbour a failure, declare their sovereignty conditional, and position your interference as protection. Ukrainians know exactly what it means to live beside a neighbour who talks this way. It never ends with words. People in the United States can learn from Ukraine’s experience, because the healthiest thing a democracy can do is recognize this rhetoric early and reject it at the ballot box.
I am not saying these congressmen are planning what russia did. I am saying they have picked up the same rhetorical tool, and that tool is dangerous no matter whose hand holds it. When elected officials write that “sovereignty comes with responsibility” and hint that they will “act on our own” inside another country, they are not proposing cooperation. They are rehearsing a pretext.
What the letter leaves out
Canada is not choosing this smoke. There were more than 850 active fires across the country this week. Families in First Nations and northern Ontario communities are being evacuated from their homes. Firefighters are working past exhaustion. No Canadian wants to breathe this air, and no Canadian wants their neighbours to breathe it either. The people of Kamloops know what wildfire season takes from a community. We have lived it, summer after summer. The photo above is from a highway near Ashcroft, one of many communities that has faced the flames directly.
The letter also erases decades of real partnership. Since 1982, Canada and the United States have shared firefighters, aircraft, and equipment across the border under a formal reciprocal arrangement. When Canada faced its historic 2023 season, the United States sent 2,774 wildland firefighters north, and Canada has done the same in reverse, sending crews south when American fires raged and the U.S. sat at its highest preparedness level. American and Canadian firefighters have stood side by side on fire lines in both countries, year after year. When two Canadian firefighters died in 2023, the American wildland firefighting community sent condolences and said the losses were felt by everyone, regardless of country. That is the real relationship. It is a relationship of mutual aid, and it works. The congressmen writing angry letters are not describing their country’s firefighters. They are insulting them.
This week, a 50 percent tariff
Here is the context the letter’s authors would prefer you not notice. On July 20, four days after the congressional letter, the U.S. administration announced its intention to impose a new 50 percent tariff on a wide range of Canadian goods. Days before that, the president had threatened Canada with increased tariffs over the wildfire smoke itself. Read that again: while Canadian families were being evacuated and firefighters from both countries fought the flames together, the response from Washington was to blame the victim, threaten sanctions, and escalate a trade war against the neighbour whose house is burning.
The smoke is not a Canadian policy failure. It is a symptom of a changing climate, and climate change is everyone’s responsibility, including the country that is currently dismantling its own clean energy investments. Blaming the victim of a global crisis is not leadership. It is the oldest trick in politics: find a neighbour, point a finger, and hope your voters look outward instead of at you.
What good neighbours sound like
There is a better model, and it comes from an American. U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra, himself from Michigan, said this week that the wildfire challenge “knows no borders” and praised the real-time cooperation between our two governments. That is what neighbours sound like. Last year, when the same politicians made the same complaints, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew called it a “timber tantrum.” He was right then, and the description still fits.
So what do good neighbours do when smoke crosses a fence line? They show up with help. They send firefighters, aircraft, and crews, as both of our countries have done for each other for more than forty years. They share data and coordinate evacuations. They invest together in prevention, because fire does not check passports and neither does smoke. What they do not do is threaten sanctions and impose tariffs on the family whose house is burning.
I want to believe this letter represents a loud minority and not the American people. Most Americans I have met, taught, and worked with understand that Canada is a friend, and their firefighters have proven it on our fire lines. My hope is that voters in Michigan, Ohio, and everywhere else will notice the difference between representatives who solve problems and representatives who perform outrage, and choose accordingly. Ukraine’s story shows where the rhetoric of conditional sovereignty leads if it is left unchallenged. Americans still have every chance to choose the other path: the path their own firefighters already walk.
Canada does not need supervision. Canada needs partners. To our American neighbours: we are fighting these fires with everything we have, and we are grieving the communities they have taken. Stand with us the way friends stand with friends, the way your firefighters already do. Help us, do not blame us. That is what neighbours do.
References and Further Reading
All sources accessed July 23, 2026. Readers are encouraged to verify every claim in this piece against the original documents below.
The congressional letter
James, J., Bergman, J., Moolenaar, J. R., & McClain, L. C. (2026, July 15). Letter to The Right Honourable Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada. Office of Rep. Jack Bergman. https://bergman.house.gov/UploadedFiles/Canadian_Wildfires_Summer_2026.pdf
Office of Rep. Jack Bergman. (2026, July 15). Michigan Republicans: Canada’s apologies won’t clear Michigan’s skies [Press release]. https://bergman.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=1536
Crawley, M. (2026, July 16). Republicans blast Canada over wildfire smoke, air quality in northern U.S. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/widlfires-smoke-air-quality-michigan-congress-republicans-9.7272538
WILX News 10. (2026, July 17). ‘Patience has run out’: Michigan lawmakers demand answers from Canada over wildfire smoke. https://www.wilx.com/2026/07/17/patience-has-run-out-michigan-lawmakers-demand-answers-canada-over-wildfire-smoke/
Canada-US wildfire cooperation and mutual aid
U.S. Department of the Interior. (2025). Canada and the United States commit to enhanced wildland fire cooperation. https://www.doi.gov/wildlandfire/canada-and-united-states-commit-enhanced-wildland-fire-cooperation
National Interagency Fire Center. (n.d.). International support. https://www.nifc.gov/fire-information/international-support
National Interagency Fire Center. (n.d.). US firefighters continue to support Canada during record-breaking wildfires. https://www.nifc.gov/fire-information/news-releases/us-firefighters-continue-support-canada-during-record-breaking
National Interagency Fire Center. (n.d.). Canadian fire crews mobilized to provide wildfire support. https://www.nifc.gov/fire-information/news-releases/canadian-fire-crews-mobilized-provide-wildfire-support
Natural Resources Canada. (2025). Joining forces internationally to better understand and fight forest fires. https://natural-resources.canada.ca/forests-forestry/state-canada-forests/joining-forces-internationally-better-understand-fight-forest-fires
The tariff escalation, July 2026
Prime Minister of Canada. (2026, July 20). Statement by Prime Minister Carney on the United States administration’s intention to impose new tariffs on Canadian goods. https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/statements/2026/07/20/statement-prime-minister-carney-united-states-administrations-intention
Crawley, M. (2026, July 20). Trump to hit Canada with new tariffs, citing trade ‘discrimination’ over vehicles, dairy and alcohol. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-canada-us-trade-tariffs-cusma-usmca-9.7276973
Al Jazeera. (2026, July 21). Trump’s new 50 percent Canada tariffs: What products are affected and why? https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/21/trumps-new-50-percent-canada-tariffs-what-products-are-affected-and-why
On the rhetoric of pretext
Readers who want to examine the parallel drawn in this piece can compare the language of the congressional letter above with the documented history of pre-2014 and pre-2022 Russian state claims about the treatment of Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine and Crimea, which were used to frame violations of Ukrainian sovereignty as protection. I encourage readers to consult the extensive scholarly and journalistic record on this history and draw their own conclusions.
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