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Alberta Premier Jason Kenney says forest fires have always been around and carbon taxes won’t do anything to change that.

Kenney says a number of factors, including climate change, have contributed to the dire forest fire situation in northern Alberta over the last two weeks.

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Wildfires have forced more than 10,000 people from their homes and more than a dozen communities stand empty.

Kenney’s United Conservative government repealed the province’s carbon tax this week to make good on an election campaign promise.

The former NDP government brought in the tax in an attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and as a way to raise revenue for green energy projects.

Kenney shrugs off criticism that Alberta is now doing less to fight climate change.

“They’ve had a carbon tax in British Columbia for 10 years. It hasn’t made a difference to the pattern of forest fires there … or in Alberta. And we’ve always had forest fires. We always will,” Kenney said Friday after a luncheon speech to a Calgary business audience.