Tolkkinen: ‘Canada’ writes back to Minnesota’s GOP congressional delegation

Dear Minnesota Reps. Tom Emmer, Brad Finstad, Michelle Fischbach and Pete Stauber, and your two GOP colleagues from Wisconsin, Tom Tiffany and Glenn Grothman.

Canada here. We got your letter telling us that you Minnesotans are having trouble breathing from all the smoke drifting down from our wildfires.

We had no idea! We’ve been so focused on ourselves these past few summers what with all the wildfire evacuations and rebuilding we’ve been doing from previous fires.

But that’s no excuse. We have been terrible neighbors. Probably not anyone you want as your 51st state.

We are sure sorry to hear that our disastrous fire seasons have interfered with Minnesotans’ ability to go boating and fishing and create new memories with their families. Same! Thousands of our own families have had to flee for their lives, so they’re super sympathetic to your plight.

We visited the hockey arena where some of those families are sleeping on cots and asked for a show of hands of all those who feel sorry for Minnesotans prevented from spending a nice weekend with their families water skiing in Brainerd. Everybody raised their hands.

So did the hundreds of people whose homes burned in Denare Beach, Saskatchewan, in May. So did the people from Jasper, Alberta, who lost a third of their buildings last year. The people from Lytton, British Columbia, whose village burned in 2021, stopped rebuilding to ask us to thank you for letting them know how inconvenienced Minnesotans have been by the wildfire smoke.

You didn’t mention Denare Beach or Jasper or Lytton in your letter, so we thought maybe you hadn’t heard about them. Completely understandable! You have a lot more important things to do, like cutting food aid and health care for poor people and protecting your president from the Epstein files fallout. (We saw you voted against releasing the Epstein files, Rep. Fischbach!)

We also completely understand that it’s hard to breathe when the wildfire smoke gets thick. Been there! Have you tried N95 masks? We know they’re a little controversial, but they do help with the smoke.

You asked how we plan to mitigate wildfire and the smoke that makes its way south. We were thinking possibly big fans set on the border near International Falls and Voyageurs National Park? Although that might upset your colleague, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who wants to make it a felony to manipulate the weather.

She might be onto something, though. There are rumblings up here that MTG is a sleeper environmentalist who wants to go after the coal industry. When you think about it, such an appropriate last name, eh? Climate change has definitely made our weather worse and what is that if not manipulation?

Besides gigantic fans, other options we are considering include stationing volunteers with fire extinguishers near every forest, raking the forest floors like Finland, and installing sprinkler systems throughout our drought-stricken regions.

Did you know that we don’t like wildfires, either? Bet you didn’t! To use your word, we are trying to “mitigate” the problem. We’re conducting controlled burns and telling people they’d better be careful where they build and how they build. I know it must look like we’re drinking beer and chasing moose all day, but we actually have been working on this.

You didn’t offer any help or advice in your letter, and that’s OK! It’s a really big problem. I bet Rep. Stauber didn’t know what to do when St. Louis and Lake counties were on fire this spring, either. That one burned a whole bunch of buildings, too. Right in his district. Hugs, Pete! We up here are wondering why you didn’t use all the technology you have at your disposal to prevent those, but we don’t want to sound like we’re blaming you for your tragedies. It would be too bad if tariffs drove up the costs of that technology for you. We sure wouldn’t want you to suffer the way we have suffered from your nation’s erratic tariff policies.

Speaking of tragedies. You know what’s a tragedy? You didn’t mention the Big CC in your letter, but climate change is the real tragedy. We’ve had decades of warnings, but too many people don’t want to do anything about it. Canada is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet. That means hotter, drier weather, and more bark beetles that turn pine forests into kindling. Our fire seasons are starting earlier and lasting longer.

Too many people yell at the ones trying to warn us. Everyone calls them leftists. Well, let us ask you something, Pete, Michelle, Brad, Tom, Tom and Glenn. If a truck was plunging straight at you and people tried to warn you, would you call them leftists?

Maybe we need to start calling them heroes.

Love,

Canada

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