Jasper is at a crossroads. Like its residents, legislators in Ottawa must come together today to expedite Jasper’s rebuild

“Will there just be crumbs, dad?”

We were driving back to Jasper—for the first time since the fire. We were passing through the community’s west gate, trying to prepare the kids for the town and the surrounding forest to look different. 

Our four-year-old son was wondering what would be left of the houses he knew burned in the fire. 

“Will the houses just be crumbs, dad? Or did they disappear?”

To avoid exposing the kids to the most extreme visuals of the recovery zones, my wife suggested we arrive home via Jasper’s eastern-most entrance—the one that leads to Hinton (our sister community, as we call it now).

We were almost out of the blast zone when I pointed urgently, past Nicole, to a pair of massive, charcoal-coloured Douglas Fir trees. They’d been ripped up by their roots near the intersection of the Icefields Parkway and Highway 16. 

“Holy sh*t,” I hissed. 

“Daaad,” my daughter said, not looking up from her colouring. “That’s a bad word.”

July 24, 2024 will forever represent a crossroads in Jasper. Pre and post-fire.

In these early days, depending on the direction your life turned at that junction—the road ahead can be agonizing to consider. 

For retired community members whose generational homes were vaporized, for single people already living lean, for families, for seniors, for couples and for anyone else whose homes and jobs were, overnight, deleted—the road to rebuilding might seem like too steep of a hill to consider. Two-thousand residents have been displaced. Our tax requisition and revenues will take a $3.6 million (30 percent) hit. Damage to infrastructure is still being tallied. Health concerns are swirling around. Insurance nightmares are commonplace. Thoughts of permits and contractors and demolition and red tape boggle the mind.

“Daunting” is a popular adjective in Jasper these days. 

But while steep, slippery and scary, the road ahead is not completely devoid of signposts. Jasper reached an important milestone on September 17: school starting. Even Jasperites without kids have told me how they were yearning for the sense of routine brought by the steady ebb and flow of children going to and from the schools. It’s certainly been anchoring for our family, but then we remember that many of our educators’ lives were turned upside down by the fire, too. 

These anchors in the community are themselves feeling…adrift.

Not everything is out of our control, however. Today, in the nation’s capital, our highest officials—the elected representatives we send to Ottawa to vote on important policies which shape Canadian’s lives—are talking about Jasper. Specifically, they’re discussing a newly-introduced bill which will enable the transfer of some land use planning and development authority from Parks Canada to the Municipality of Jasper. 

Finally, as they say, some good news. 

“An Act to amend the Canada National Parks Act” is Jasper’s phoenix right now. The phoenix is a mythical bird, associated with renewal and regeneration. It is a symbol of hope, of life and of better things to come.

But more than a symbol, this Bill is a very real opportunity. Jasper has wanted this opportunity for years.

Liberals, Conservatives and the NDP can play typical politics and drag this bill through the House of Commons, or they can come together and expedite it to committee unanimously. Canadian MPs—including, and especially, our MP, Yellowhead’s Gerald Soroka—must work together to provide Jasper the same planning exemptions the CNPA affords to Banff. And they must do so with the same urgency and solidarity they praised Jasper Incident Recovery Team personnel for demonstrating while Canada’s largest mountain national park burned.  

Jasper is at a crossroads. We want to rebuild. We’re going to need each other. As we have seen throughout this devastating incident, we can move mountains when we’re all pulling the same direction.  

For the past 60 days, Jasper has survived by relying on the solidarity of our community.

Now we need our MPs to likewise band together. If Canada’s elected representatives truly have Jasper’s back, they will demonstrate it in Parliament today. 

Bob Covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com