Alberta’s party leaders are ignoring the climate crisis while the region burns

Smoke rises from the Paskwa fire as it burns near Fox Lake, Alberta, Canada. Photograph: Alberta Wildfire/Reuters

Record-breaking wildfires have charred more than a million hectares of land in Alberta, pushing tens of thousands from their homes and choking the skies in a thick haze of smoke.

But on the zigzagging campaign trail of the province’s general election, neither party leader has confronted the realities of climate change and how it will likely dramatically reshape life in the Canadian prairies.