Canada has become accustomed to talking about wildfires in terms of burned hectares, destroyed communities, and exhausted firefighters. Those numbers are dramatic, but they tell only part of the story. The smoke drifting across the country carries a different kind of cost, one that is largely invisible and rarely enters public debate.
Every day, Canadians breathe polluted air, stay indoors, cancel activities, visit emergency rooms, miss work, and suffer long-term health consequences. Those costs accumulate quietly in the background, yet they may be among the largest economic consequences of climate change that Canadians face today.
In this interview, economist Dave Sawyer argues that wildfire smoke has fundamentally changed from an occasional nuisance into a permanent feature of Canadian life. His research estimates that smoke-related health damages and associated economic costs now total roughly $19 billion annually, a figure that has climbed sharply over the past decade.
More importantly, the trend is moving in the wrong direction. Air quality data collected across Canada shows a clear increase in wildfire-generated fine particulate matter since 2014, with a pronounced step change beginning around 2019. Canadians are no longer experiencing the occasional bad fire season. We are living in a new era.
Sawyer’s analysis draws on one of Canada’s strongest environmental datasets. Hundreds of air quality monitoring stations measure PM2.5 concentrations in real time across the country. Those measurements are combined with detailed population data, decades of epidemiological research linking smoke exposure to illness, and economic estimates of hospital costs, lost productivity, and other health impacts.
The result is a comprehensive picture of what wildfire smoke is actually costing Canadians, not in theory, but today. The implications extend well beyond public health.
Sawyer argues that wildfire smoke exposes a growing imbalance in Canada’s policy priorities. Governments devote enormous attention to the economic benefits of pipelines, oil production, and resource development, while the mounting economic damages associated with climate change receive far less attention.
In his view, governments exist to balance private economic gains against public costs, including the health risks imposed on millions of Canadians.
This conversation explores the evidence behind Canada’s new smoky reality, the strength of the underlying data, the policy choices available to governments, and why wildfire smoke deserves to be viewed as one of the country’s most important economic stories rather than simply another environmental issue.
