The Canadian wildfires are fuelling wild conspiracy theories

May 22, 2023

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I don't know what's worse: the wildfires or America singing "Blame Canada."

And by singing, I mean wheezing and pointing fingers to the north. The front page of the New York Post on Thursday framed our neighbour's cranky mood: "EH! POCALYPSE NOW. Canuck wildfires plunge NYC into eerie, smoky hell. BLAME CANADA!"

The footage on cable news, in heavy rotation with "Canadian Wildfires" in every chyron, was certainly eerie. The Empire State Building, cloaked in a tangerine haze, looked like it was on Mars. The Yankees game was cancelled Wednesday as the team cited "poor air quality due to smoke from the Canadian wildfires."

Curiously, the Bronx Bombers did not sneak in a cheap shot at Vladdy.

"Blame Canada" was not the only reaction to the woodland infernos that have torched more than 3.5 million hectares while blocking out the sun to millions. In this age of feverish misinformation, the wildfires sparked wild conspiracies involving everything from space lasers to UFOs to boreal spontaneous combustion.

Rolling Stone catalogued the tinfoil musings this week, which included the "Flame Thrower Drone" theory. One popular video on social media allegedly shows a chopper spewing fire on a forest. This prompted an influential whackadoodle to conclude: "It seems Canada isn't sophisticated enough to use Directed Energy Weapons (DEWs). Looks like they opted for a drone with a flame thrower instead."

This genius may want to Google the firefighting tactic of "back burning."

But I’m not here to start yet another war with the Cuckoo-For-Cocoa-Puffs crowd. I’m still fending off the anarchists. Man alive, for a group that wants to burn down capitalism, these anarchists are more sensitive than the Swifties.

Stop emailing to demand I read Kropotkin or Bakunin. Not happening.

What I do wonder, in this daytime twilight, is why conspiracists are getting boring.

Bring back the Bermuda Triangle brigade! Tell the Shape-Shifting Lizard People we are overdue for a crazy new bulletin! The Wildfire Conspiracies, with their blah "Taiga Great Awakening" or blah-blah "Antifa Arsonists" are just embarrassingly lame.

If not satisfied with official conflagration causes of lightning and drought, at least meld your beliefs into a unified theory and argue the Quebec fires were started by a careless Bigfoot who dozed off while puffing on stogies with John F. Kennedy Jr.

If the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were an inside job, why wouldn't diabolical agents secretly tamper with Canada's airtankers in advance of wildfire season and replace the retardant with napalm to create a mushroom cloud that could blanket the east coast, spread to Norway and inspire leaders of the New World Order to enact even stricter lockdown measures? Why did George Soros nickname Toronto, "The Big Smoke?"

And why were no 5G towers damaged in the fires?

Here's the thing: I don't like conspiracy theories. You don't like conspiracy theories. No reasonable person gravitates toward the unreasonable. But every Canadian needs to spread conspiracy theories now to escape the scorched heat of "Blame Canada."

Until these apocalyptic skies clear — I just bought a gas mask and lubricating eye drops on Amazon so I can do yard work this weekend — we all need to hold our noses and pump conspiratorial nonsense into the ether to blunt the blame game.

Tucker Carlson has previously demanded a full-scale invasion of our sovereign territory. You don't think that dipstick is holed up in his fishing cabin and scrawling a Twitter monologue on a cocktail napkin that calls for Canada to provide asthma puffer reparations to all Americans under a U.N. charter he does not understand?

You know what happened this week? Mark Shaiman, the composer who co-wrote the "Blame Canada" song for "South Park" in 1999, came up with new lyrics to reflect the wildfires. Per Playbill, these lines include: "I can't breathe." "My chest is burning up." "Blame Canada." "It seems our friends up in Quebec / Have made Manhattan a stinkin’ wreck." "Shame on Canada." "The Ontario smoke / That's making us choke."

You get the idea. Now think of ways to pin this on the Loch Ness Monster.

For the last few years, a polarized America has been at war with itself. Now it has a new enemy: Canada. I can feel it this week in the subtext of op-eds and the subtle sneering of cable anchors. I can see it plainly in headlines such as "See Hazy Skies? Blame Canada," "That Smoke You Smell … Blame Canada," and, perhaps most shockingly, "I Blame Canada For Killing My Mom."

Sure, we could try to defend ourselves with facts. We could point our American friends to government stats about how Canada has close to 10 per cent of the world's forests. Or how there were more than 7,000 fires during the past quarter century.

We could try to have a nuanced conversation about climate change. The menacing sky right now may not be an anomaly — it may be a smoggy harbinger of what's to come.

Or we could beat the U.S. at its favourite pastime: conspiracy theories.

Don't blame us for the wildfires. Blame the Chupacabra. Blame chemtrails. Blame Target. Blame fluoride. Blame the fake moon landing. Blame dragons. Blame vampires. Blame "Vanderpump Rules." Blame the pyromaniacal goblins that escaped from under Hillary Clinton's pantsuit while smuggling Bic lighters across the border.

America, don't get burned by fake news.

These are not "Canadian wildfires" and you can't prove otherwise.

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