In this video, Member of Parliament Arnold Viersen speaks out against the $15 million reduction in Alberta’s provincial budget for wildfire suppression. The funds allotted for air tankers was cut by $5.1 million while the base wildfire management budget was slashed by $9.6 million.

Paul Lane, the vice president of the air tanker company Air Spray said the company’s contract was cut by 25 per cent in the recent budget.

From CBCnews:

“The province has reduced the operating contracts, for not just us but the other air tanker operator, from 123 days to 93 days,” [Mr. Lane] said.

“Effectively that will mean that all the air tanker assets in Alberta will come up contract by August 16. The province has no guarantee of availability after that period of those air tanker assets.”

From the Edmonton Journal:

With dry conditions and dozens of blazes already burning across Alberta, Premier Rachel Notley said Tuesday her government’s decision to slash the wildfire budget by $15 million this year won’t impact the province’s firefighting efforts.

Notley chalked the matter up to simple budgetary practices that has the province earmark base funding, with the understanding firefighting efforts are covered in the province’s emergency budget.

“In no way, shape or form are we suggesting that we wouldn’t put every bit of resources that are required to ensure that fires are appropriately fought as they arise,” Notley told reporters at a Red Deer news conference. “This is the way these kinds of emergent and non-predictable costs are typically budgeted.”

Last year, the province spent $375 million fighting wildfires; none of that money was earmarked in the budget, but instead came directly from emergency funding.

After [the air tanker] contracts expire Aug. 16, the province will hire planes on case by case basis as needed, but critics say that could leave the government in a vulnerable position if companies look for longer-term contracts elsewhere.