By Josée-Anne Spirito, PSAC North Regional Executive Vice-President
As another devastating wildfire season finally begins to wind down, a sense of cautious relief comes with exhaustion, anxiety and the lingering effects of yet another summer marked by fear and displacement for too many Northern families and communities.
Across Canada, this season has once again brought devastating wildfires, smoke-filled skies, mass evacuations, and record-breaking heat. Here in the Northwest Territories, families in communities such as Fort Providence and Whatì were forced to flee as wildfires advanced dangerously close to homes and infrastructure, an experience all too familiar to many of us in Yellowknife.
For Northerners, climate change is not an abstract threat. It’s a deeply personal threat we see, live and breathe every day. From the painful return of memories of long evacuation days to the uncertainty of not knowing when or whether you’ll be able to return home, these experiences can have profound impacts on our physical, emotional and mental health and well-being.
When disasters become routine, their effects compound. In the North, many workers are already stretched thin, working in underfunded systems with limited resources. The reality of eco-anxiety — a chronic fear about environmental collapse — means that when our environment suffers, so do we.
For public service workers, especially those in healthcare, emergency services and frontline roles like wildland firefighters, climate change means more pressure, danger, and risk. These are the people who head toward the fire, putting their lives on the line so the rest of us can keep our homes and communities. They deserve dignity, protection and for their work to be valued.
Environmental crises are also workplace crises, and employers must take them seriously. Climate breakdown is an escalating occupational health and safety issue. Mental health is just as important as physical safety, and employers must start treating it that way. Ensuring healthy and safe working conditions means addressing environmental hazards, mental health risks, workload, staffing, discrimination and human rights as interconnected issues, not separate ones.
But it’s not just on employers to act. As workers and union members, we also have a role to play in supporting one another. Solidarity in a crisis can look like many things. It means checking in on a co-worker who’s struggling. It means getting involved in your workplace and union health and safety committees. It means knowing your rights and raising health and safety concerns before they become emergencies. It means organizing for safer conditions, and standing up for those who can’t stand alone.
We all have the right to safe and healthy workplaces, and the power to demand better. We also have a responsibility — to ourselves and to each other — to take care, protect one another, and build resilience in the face of crises.
As we recover from this summer’s wildfires and prepare for what comes next, let’s work together to create workplaces where workers are respected, protected and prepared for the challenges ahead.
This column appeared in the Yellowknifer on October 3, 2025.