Alberta
Alberta bans fires in provincial parks, protected areas, hiring 200 new firefighters, increasing fines & more

The Albert government is taking a number of steps to reduce the risk of spring wildfires while protecting municipalities.
Alberta Wildfire is hiring 200 additional firefighters, invoking a fire ban, implementing off-highway vehicle (OHV) restrictions, increasing fine violations and funding $20 million more in community FireSmart initiatives, all to prepare for the upcoming wildfire season during COVID-19.
Alberta Parks is also instituting a fire ban in all provincial parks and protected areas.
These early preparedness measures will ensure the province can effectively focus resources where they are needed most in the event of multiple emergencies happening at the same time.
Typically, the wildfire hazard is highest in Alberta in late April through May, when fuel like trees and grasses have extremely low moisture content after the snow has melted.

A massive wildfire swept through parts of Fort McMurray in May 2016, leading to the evacuation of the population and billions in damages. Photo Courtesy/Government of Alberta
More than a million acres burned last year and 71 per cent of wildfires were human-caused and entirely preventable. With provincial resources currently stretched due to COVID-19, these preventative measures will better equip Alberta’s response to spring wildfires this year.
“Albertans are tough and we’re all doing what we can to keep each other safe during COVID-19. With Alberta’s wildfire season matching with the expected peak of COVID-19, we have to take extra precautions to ensure our response efforts are well-funded and planned out. This spring, we may find ourselves facing multiple disasters at once. With all these measures, we will be prepared.” Devin Dreeshen, Minister of Agriculture and Forestry
Increased firefighting resources
An additional $5 million investment is being made to hire and train 200 high-quality firefighters to assist with the provincial wildfire suppression this season.

The fire ban and OHV restriction are temporary measures, which will remain in place only as long as required to combat the wildfire risk.
More than 800 seasonal firefighters will join 370 year-round staff at Alberta Wildfire. These resources are hired at one of the 10 Forest Areas, and are moved throughout the Forest Protection Area as required.
Fire ban and OHV restriction
A fire ban in the Forest Protection Area, provincial parks and protected areas, as well as a recreational OHV ban on Crown land in the Forest Protection Area, will come into effect April 15.
Alberta’s Forest Protection Area covers almost 60 per cent of Alberta, most of the northern half of the province and the western border, excluding federal parks.
The government recognizes that many Albertans use OHVs and respects this valid activity. At the same time, the government must take into account limitations and manage risk due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Hot mufflers can potentially start wildfires.
The fire ban and OHV restriction are temporary measures, which will remain in place only as long as required to combat the wildfire risk. Measures may later be adjusted to take into account the needs of specific regions.
All fire permits will be suspended in this area, and landowners are responsible for ensuring any holdover fires are extinguished by this time.
Indigenous people may use OHVs on public land for traditional purposes. Use of OHVs on private lands, for industrial use (for example forestry, agriculture and energy) and by emergency responders is also permitted.

A recreational off-highway vehicle (OHV) ban on Crown land in the Forest Protection These OHV restrictions are only temporary measures.
Fines are being doubled from $300 to $600 for non-compliance with a fire ban and from $600 to $1,200 for non-compliance with an OHV restriction. With 71 per cent of last year’s wildfires started by people, these fine increases reflect the seriousness of the preventative measure Albertans must take to prevent wildfires.
Individuals found contravening a fire ban or OHV restriction will be subject to increased fines, starting April 15, and could be held liable for all costs associated with fighting a wildfire. Last year, more than $600 million was spent fighting wildfires in Alberta.
These fines are in addition to the existing penalties for arson under the Criminal Code.
“Our province is taking steps to prepare for wildfires and other hazards this spring and summer by increasing our emergency response capacity. This means that while we continue to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, we will also be ready to respond to other emergencies as they may arise.” Kaycee Madu, Minister of Municipal Affairs
Increased FireSmart funding
FireSmart will receive a funding boost of up to $20 million to support vegetation management in the province. The department will work with municipalities to ensure these funds are used this fiscal year.
FireSmart helps to reduce the wildfire risk to Albertans, their homes and communities. The FireSmart program includes grants to support the most at-risk communities in Alberta, including Indigenous communities.
This additional funding will help mitigate wildfire damages and losses in more Alberta communities by creating FireSmart zones around at-risk communities to reduce wildfire hazards.
To increase response capacity and prepare for multiple and concurrent disasters, such as wildfires and floods, the Provincial Operations Centre has been reinforced by the creation of a Pandemic Response Planning Team. This team will help coordinate government’s medium and long-term response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Quick facts
- For more information on wildfires, download the Alberta Wildfire app.
- Up-to-date information on fire restrictions, fire bans, OHV restrictions and general wildfire information is available at albertafirebans.ca or by calling 1-866-FYI-FIRE (1-866-394-3473).
- To report a wildfire, call 310-FIRE (310-3473) toll-free, from anywhere in Alberta.
- Most new seasonal staff will be on-the-ground firefighters, with wages between $22 and $28 per hour.
- Fire bans and OHV restrictions have proven to be effective prevention tools in reducing the number of human-caused wildfires.
- Anyone found to be non-compliant with a fire ban or OHV restriction may also have to go to court and may receive a fine up to $100,000. Anyone found to be the cause of a wildfire may be liable for the costs associated with extinguishing the fire.
- FireSmart is a program that requires cooperation of all people living, working and playing in the forest.
Alberta
Sylvan Lake high school football coach fired for criticizing gender ideology sends legal letter to school board

From LifeSiteNews
The letter on behalf of Alberta high school volunteer football coach Taylor ‘Teej’ Johannesson mentions ‘workplace harassment’ while demanding his job back.
A Sylvan Lake high school football coach who was fired for sharing his views opposing transgender ideology on social media in a video discussing his Christian faith sent a legal demand to his former school board demanding he get his job back.
H.J. Cody High School volunteer coach Taylor “Teej” Johannesson, as reported by LifeSiteNews, earlier this month was fired by his school’s principal because he spoke out against gender-confused youth who “take their hatred of Christians” to another level by committing violent acts against them.
School principal Alex Lambert fired Teej, as he is known, as a result of a TikTok video in which he speaks out against radical gender ideology and the dangers it brings.
In a recent update involving his case, local media with knowledge of Johannesson’s issues with the principal at H.J. Cody High School in Sylvan Lake, Alberta, confirmed a legal demand letter was sent to the school.
The letter reads, “From his perspective, this opposition is consistent with the Alberta government’s position and legislation prohibiting prescribing prescription hormones to minors and providing care to them that involves transition surgeries.”
In the letter, the school board’s “workplace harassment” procedure is mentioned, stating, “Any act of workplace harassment or workplace violence shall be considered unacceptable conduct whether that conduct occurs at work, on Division grounds, or at division-sponsored activities.”
The legal demand letter, which was sent to school officials last week, reads, “Given that Mr. Johannesson’s expression in the TikTok Video was not connected to his volunteer work, the principal and the division have no authority to regulate his speech and punish him by the Termination decision, which is ultra vires (“beyond the powers.)”
Johannesson has said, in speaking with local media, that his being back at work at the school as a volunteer coach has meaning: “It’s about trying to create some change within the school system.”
He noted how, for “too long,” a certain “political view, one ideology, has taken hold in the school system.”
“I’m hoping that this demand letter, and all the attention that they’ve gotten over this, causes them to make some change,” he stated.
Johannesson has contacted Alberta’s Chief of Staff for the Minister of Education about his firing and was told that there is a board meeting taking place over the demand letter.
According to Teej, Lambert used his TikTok video as an excuse to get rid of someone in the school with conservative political views and who is against her goal to place “safe space stickers” all over the school.
Teej has been in trouble before with the school administration. About three years ago, he was called in to see school officials for posting on Twitter a biological fact that “Boys have a penis. Girls have a vagina.”
Alberta’s Conservative government under Premier Danielle Smith has in place a new policy protecting female athletes from gender-confused men that has taken effect across the province.
As LifeSiteNews previously reported, the Government of Alberta is currently fighting a court order that is blocking the province’s newly passed ban on transgender surgeries and drugs for children.
Alberta also plans to ban books with sexually explicit as well as pornographic material, many of which contain LGBT and even pedophilic content, from all school libraries.
Alberta
Parents group blasts Alberta government for weakening sexually explicit school book ban

From LifeSiteNews
By
The revised rules no longer place restrictions on written descriptions of sexual content.
Some parental rights advocates have taken issue with the Conservative government of Alberta’s recent updates to a ban on sexually explicit as well as pornographic material from all school libraries, saying the new rules water down the old ones as they now allow for descriptions of extreme and graphic sexual acts in written form.
As reported by LifeSiteNews last week, Alberta Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides of the ruling United Conservative Party (UCP) released revised rules outlining the province’s ban on sexually explicit content in school libraries.
The original ban included all forms of sexually explicit as well as pornographic material. However, after a large public school board alleged the ban applied to classic books, the government changed the rules, removing a clause for written sexual content that has some parental rights groups up in arms.
Tanya Gaw, founder of the conservative-leaning Action4Canada, noted to media that while she is happy with Premier Danielle Smith for the original book ban, she has deep concerns with the revised rules.
“We are very concerned about the decision that no longer places restrictions on written descriptions of those acts, which is problematic,” she said in an interview with The Epoch Times.
Gaw noted how kids from kindergarten to grade 12 should “never” be “exposed to graphic written details of sex acts: incest, molestation, masturbation, sexual assaults, and profane vulgar language.”
According to John Hilton-O’Brien, who serves as the executive director of Parents for Choice in Education, the new rule changes regarding written depictions “still shifts the burden onto parents to clean up what should never have been purchased in the first place.”
He did say, however, that the new “Ministerial Order finally makes catalogs public, and what we see there is troubling.”
Alberta’s revised rules state that all school library books must not contain “explicit visual depictions of a sexual act.” To make it clear, the standards in detail go over the types of images that are banned due to their explicit pornographic nature.
All Alberta schools have until October 31 to provide a list of books that will be removed under the new rules, with the ban taking effect on January 5, 2026.
As reported by LifeSiteNews in May, Smith’s UCP government went ahead with plans to ban books with sexually explicit as well as pornographic material, many of which contain LGBT and even pedophilic content, from all school libraries.
The ban was to take effect on October 1.
The UCP’s crackdown on sexual content in school libraries comes after several severely sexually explicit graphic novels were found in school libraries in Calgary and Edmonton.
The pro-LGBT books in question at multiple school locations are Gender Queer, a graphic novel by Maia Kobabe; Flamer, a graphic novel by Mike Curato; Blankets, a graphic novel by Craig Thompson; and Fun Home, a graphic novel by Alison Bechdel.
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