This is actually quite a live debate in the emergency management world - lots of forums & publications debating it! People hold passionately different views (e.g., "the forces are well equipped with strong young people" vs "they lack training or expertise for this specific work"). (3/n) - ThreadSky

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ericbkennedy.bsky.social • 20 days ago

This is actually quite a live debate in the emergency management world - lots of forums & publications debating it! People hold passionately different views (e.g., "the forces are well equipped with strong young people" vs "they lack training or expertise for this specific work"). (3/n)

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ericbkennedy.bsky.social•20 days ago

But, when this is covered by journalists, it can often be treated as though it's a settled question: "well, we have a military that could help, and they haven't been called in, so why is that?"

The problem is it's not settled: whether the military would actually "help" is a debate, not a truth.

ericbkennedy.bsky.social•20 days ago

What this article does well is explain /why/ the military hasn't been called before diving into that debate: it's because the military has particular strengths (e.g., heavy lift aircraft for evacuations, able-bodied people for mop-up) and weaknesses (basically zero expert wildfire fighters). (5/n)

ericbkennedy.bsky.social•20 days ago

Maybe we as a society want to change that. Maybe we think the military should be in the business of firefighting (many in the Canadian Forces disagree, BTW!).

But, it doesn't serve robust debate when we perpetuate misunderstandings (e.g., soldiers can be dumped in as firefighters). (6/n)

ericbkennedy.bsky.social•20 days ago

This matters because the public needs to critically evaluate different claims, like when a politician takes a shot by implying "the fires/outcomes are worse because they didn't call in the forces." That's often presented without context, so I'm really grateful it's contextualized here. (7/n)

ericbkennedy.bsky.social•20 days ago

Anyways, just wanted to highlight this article for doing a good job at presenting this. I think maybe @hspray.bsky.social is the journalist (maybe?) so kudos! And since CBC doesn't have a Bluesky presence, also want to highlight her good work to @hannahhoag.bsky.social and other awesome folks. (8/8)

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