The Alberta government is asking Ottawa to pay its costs incurred while handling the Jasper wildfire.
The province’s minister of public safety and emergency services, Mike Ellis, says the national park’s superintendent has responsibility for all emergency decisions in the park and the townsite, leaving little chance for Alberta to have a say.
Ellis told a Commons committee that they’ve still put up 149-million dollars to support the area’s recovery.
But he says current cost-sharing arrangements only allow the province to receive part of that expense from the federal government.
Ellis wants that changed so Alberta can recover the entire cost, noting the blaze started in an area of federal jurisdiction.
