Ontario Premier Doug Ford continues to defend how his government prepared for the summer in the face of massive wildfires sweeping across northern Ontario, displacing communities and requiring support from across the country.
Offering an update on the near-200 wildfires burning in the province and the 13 communities under evacuation orders, the premier said it was time to enhance trans-Canadian co-ordination for firefighting.
“We need to support from the federal government — they have been very good, have given us 2-8 planes, spray the fire retardant down, but we need a large national fire strategy,” Ford said on Monday morning.
“We seem to be going through this every single year, if not ourselves, (then) out in Manitoba. If you remember last year and a little bit in Saskatchewan and Alberta and B.C. and Quebec. Right now in Nova Scotia. So right across the country in fire season.”
The request for a national firefighting strategy was one Ford and the country’s premiers made to the federal government last summer.
At the close of the second day of a leaders’ summit in Huntsville, Ont., in 2025, Canada’s premiers agreed to a joint statement requesting that the federal government provide “adequate and flexible federal funding” for emergencies.
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The request was also made for help in creating national standards and co-ordinating during emergencies.
The plan is one that New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt said was talked about for the first time this week.
“That’s a new one that we started discussing in light of the fires that are being experienced across a lot of provinces,” she said at the time. “So we started the conversation on what provinces need to be able to respond as quickly as possible and what level of communication is helpful, and what level isn’t.”
But back in Ontario, critics suggest the province was not suitably prepared for the wildland firefighting season and has been caught on the back foot. They argue the government has failed to significantly increase the base budget for the fire season, despite consistently overspending.
In 2024, for example, Ontario budgeted $135 million but spent $171 million by the time the season had finished. In 2025, the budget wasn’t increased and the amount spent was $271 million.
For 2026, the government increased its budget to $150 million, still less than it had spent in either of the previous two years.
“So the funding is set at about $150 million, but we know that they spent about twice that amount last year, and they’re probably going to have to spend a lot more this year,” Ontario NDP Lise Vaugeois previously said.
“The point is that they need the money up front, so the service has to basically requisition the money after the fact and play catch-up.”
Elsewhere, Ford took aim at United States President Donald Trump, who continues to muse about increasing tariffs on Canada as a punishment for smoke drifting down from forest fires.
Speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews on Sunday night, Trump said he has a good relationship with Prime Minister Mark Carney, but the fires need to stop.
He said the fires are poisoning U.S. air, and that maybe Canada should pay damages, or the U.S. should impose tariffs.
American officials have complained about Canadian wildfire smoke blanketing parts of the U.S., and Trump threatened last week to increase tariffs on Canada due to the smoke.
“I told them. I mean, you got to stop these fires from coming in and you know poisoning our air. Our air has been poisoned,” Trump said Sunday at Joint Base Andrews, near Washington, D.C.
“If we can help them, we’ll help them. But maybe they should pay us some damages or something, or we should do some tariffs.”
Smoke from Canadian fires has been triggering air quality warnings across Ontario and in multiple states, including Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, New York and Indiana.
Ford bit back at the suggestion at a news conference on Monday.
“Rather than criticize and threaten, Canada, your closest friends, maybe one day you’re going to need our help like it did last year,” the premier said. “And we deployed the people. I get frustrated just listening to this bunch of rubbish.”
He went on to suggest Ontario could use help from the United States right now.
“With all the assets the U.S. has and he’s sitting there complaining. Why don’t you send up some water bombers? Why don’t you start helping us like we would help you in a heartbeat?” he added.
— with files from The Canadian Press
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