44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 5, 2023 11:00AM
- Jun/5/23 2:47:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the raging wildfires in Alberta have left countless communities devastated. As families were allowed to return home, I joined some in the East Prairie Métis Settlement to witness the destruction and mourn the loss of their homes, cultural heirlooms and family memories.
Despite being hit the hardest, first nations and Métis settlements have only received lip service from both the provincial and federal governments. Will this government take its relationship with first nations and Métis settlements seriously and provide immediate housing supports to those who have lost everything?
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- Jun/5/23 7:32:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to hone in on an aspect of the member's speech that I think is really important for Canadians to attempt to understand. I believe the member often presents a goodwill solutions to the many things that are affecting Canadians from coast to coast to coast, particularly on affordability. I commend him for offering, what I believe, is an attempt at a solution for the affordability crisis.
The reality is that there will be a place that the Conservatives have to cut from. They are talking about austerity. They are talking about reducing the budget. Where will they cut from? Will it be dental care, care for children or clean water for first nations?
What would he cut beyond slogans? That is the part I am really nervous about in terms of offering a response. Is this going to turn into a “cut the carbon tax triple, triple, triple” thing? I seriously want to know.
An hon. member: Oh, oh!
Mr. Blake Desjarlais: Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives are heckling me right now because they do not want to actually answer the policy question.
Which area would they cut? Is it going to be dental care or child care?
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- Jun/5/23 8:33:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I know my hon. colleague does a lot of good work on the indigenous and northern affairs committee, which is something that connects both of us, him as a representative for Saskatchewan and me as a representative for Alberta who formerly represented many indigenous people.
This budget speaks directly to some of the aspects that are needed for our first nations communities to continue to get out of the crises they are in.. For example, the red dress alert is something that is most critical to constituents in my community, who are faced with some of the most tragic results of the inquiry into the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls and two-spirit people.
Why would the member oppose such an important endeavour, which is called for by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and what does he have to say to the thousands of women who need the support?
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- Jun/5/23 10:16:13 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, through you to many of my fellow Albertans, what has been happening in the month of May and what continues to happen across our province is truly devastating. The wildfires, the smoke, the devastation and the loss will be with those families for a long time. I know we will never be able to truly rebuild to the point at which they remember where they have those cultural heirlooms, where they have the things that they raised their children with, where they have the mementos from each of those monuments in their life that they can cherish and keep with them, which are now reduced to ash.
We are with those families. We will do everything in our power to make sure they can rebuild. That is why New Democrats and I are steadfast in our support of indigenous communities that have been hit the hardest by these fires.
I want to extend my personal thanks as well to the many men, women, non-binary and diverse folks who serve in our firefighting teams right across the country, but particularly in Alberta right now, who are risking their lives so that community members can save what they can. They are risking their lives to make sure that children may have a place to go back to. They are risking their lives to make sure that communities stay intact. They are certainly unsung heroes, heroes who go home day after day, covered in ash, who may not hear the thanks and gratitude from families like my own and families I visit.
In 2003, my family endured a wildfire in the northeast part of the province of Alberta. At that time I was just a child, living with my family. In just a short time, a 30-minute wind was able to bring in a fire so large that no crew could even get to it. It brought down forests; it brought down power lines; it stopped roads, and it stopped services. We were stranded. I was alone and I was scared. Me, my mum, my dad and my sister were alone, cut off from all roads, with fallen trees on either side of us. We thought surely this would be it. My dad and my mum prayed.
My dad did what he could. His father had built a barn, and he looked after that barn. Inside that barn were saddles, handmade and passed on from generation to generation, from horse whisperers in my family to some of the best rodeo clowns our province had to offer. That history was reduced, burned to ash while my father was reduced to tears.
I remember being evacuated in the arms of a firefighter. He took me in his hands, and without question I could feel his compassion and his need to save us. He put me in a car, put an oxygen mask on my mouth and told me to close my eyes. He told me to sing a song. “Three times,” he said, “and you'll be okay.”
Two songs in, I realized finally we were escaping the smoke. Although I had left my family behind, I knew that my mother and my father were going to be okay because people like him were with them, like the firefighters who are with our communities right now. For them, I want to thank the firefighters.
The reality is that it is ongoing and it is still happening today. Whether it is wildfires on the east coast or right across the Prairies, we are seeing the devastation of families like my own who have to go through this. I know that pain of not being able to get back what we once had, but I also know the joy of being able to return home with all of our lives, with the things we cherished most of all, which was each other.
When I went and journeyed just weeks ago to the East Prairie Métis Settlement, a community of which over 80% was reduced to ash, people greeted me with smiles. They greeted me with the kind of generosity and the kind of love that only a community that has withstood the worst could have. East Prairie Métis Settlement is a community of resilient, hard-working, remarkable individuals. When they received that call to evacuate early one morning in early May, they sprang into action. Just four hours is what it took for the entire community to evacuate, in a community that had only one entrance and one exit. That was because of the coordination of the community, not because of any extra help they got. It was because the community knew that this was not a matter of if; it was a matter of when.
The forests in northern Alberta have been sick. On top of that, people have had to suffer gruelling and dangerous temperatures. We used to have a saying, and I am sure many members are familiar with it: April showers bring May flowers. However, there have been no showers; this has resulted in one of the most devastating fires in the history of our province.
When I met with the council of the East Prairie Métis Settlement, its members pleaded with me. They said that in the heat of an Alberta election, they did not receive any support. They looked to the federal government, and they were stonewalled with jurisdiction. They sought support from local municipalities, but they had no resources left to offer.
This community had nothing left, but its members gave it their all. Although they lost over 14 homes, and 80% of the community burned, they saved 20%. That is an immense feat for a group of volunteers, a group of experts who hold within them the traditional knowledge necessary to continue to keep our communities safe.
They are called “wildland firefighters”, and it took only 14 of them to save the remainder of the community. This is the same group of firefighters we sent to Quebec, Ontario and right across the globe. Their skills, their understanding of forests and the traditional knowledge they carry are needed now more than ever.
I spoke to East Prairie survivors. I was there the day the evacuation order was lifted, and they took me into their community. What I witnessed was truly devastating.
I went with families, and it was an amazing moment for some of them. They saw their houses standing. They even saw their dogs, covered in ash but still protecting their land. They were holding their ground as if it were their last stand. They did it as they waited for their humans to come home. That is the kind of love that animals have a power to demonstrate and one that humans often hold back on. It is one I hope we never relent.
I spoke to some of those who lost their homes. A survivor, the oldest elder in the community, came up to me and said that once she got on that bus to go home, it felt like she was going back home as she did the day she left the residential school. She said the fear she had in her heart, and of not knowing what she was going back to, triggered her, and she wept. She found that although there was nothing left of her home, there was so much left of her community. She provided her strength, leadership and kindness to the children, mothers and those who were truly in pain. She offered them smiles, condolences and love, even though she had lost so much. I am truly inspired by that.
That is a story I wanted to share with all my colleagues, because people like this exist in their communities, too. They are worth protecting and investing in; we need to ensure that this climate catastrophe does not continue to wreck their lives.
I know they exist. They had only one ask. They said that as many families as returned home, there was the same number that could not return, because they did not have anywhere to go. They said that $900,000 is all it is going to take to ensure that all of those who lost their homes have temporary housing until they can rebuild.
We need courage, and we must demonstrate the kind of love we have for Canadians in our hearts. This must materialize as the programs and supports that people who are in need right now need the most. I beg this chamber and my colleagues to truly use the compassion they often speak so much about and turn it into action. The people of East Prairie, Paddle Prairie and Peavine deserve that. The people right across this country who are affected by the wildfires deserve that.
Those wildfires continue to rage every single day, and they are doing it right now, as we speak. I know it is late in the day for us, but those firefighters are going to be working even harder than we are tonight. They are going to be going all night, and they are going to be doing it with the risk of not returning home. I ask that we all keep them in our hearts and in our prayers tonight as they continue to battle raging wildfires across our country, in hopes that help truly comes from this place.
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- Jun/5/23 10:27:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there is no question in my mind of the service put forward by firefighters and first responders in the service they conduct, at the height of the worst conditions and realities imaginable for everyday people. They put their lives at risk. They hold on to that fear, and they manifest courage. What is most important for us to know is that, when they put that courage on, they are also putting on equipment that is risking their lives and that has been found to contribute to cancer.
I am so thankful for the bill put forward by the member opposite, because this is something we are truly united around. We have all had firefighters come join us, and we have all promised them we would do something about what they are experiencing. That is exactly what we are going to do.
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- Jun/5/23 10:29:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for the question, because it is one I was hoping to be asked. I hope to provide a good response to it on behalf of the many indigenous people who have provided me with the lessons, history and knowledge that go hand in hand with the prevention of these terrible disasters.
In the boreal forest of Treaty 8, Treaty 10 and Treaty 11 territories, there is a tradition of prescribed burns, where indigenous people burn x amount of land in order to prevent an even greater fire from being produced. Without prescribed burns, this fuel gathers, builds and becomes dangerous. That is exactly what happened when we banned the ability of first nations and Métis communities to have prescribed burns; unfortunately, this is still a reality in Canada. If we want to ensure that indigenous people get to the point of restoring the lands, which they have done for thousands of years, we have to make sure that we listen and get laws out of the way that are currently prohibiting indigenous people from practising the traditional ecological work they are supposed to do.
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- Jun/5/23 10:30:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for that question, because it is something that we often do not have the opportunity to speak about in this place. Indigenous people have long stewarded Turtle Island, North America, when catastrophes happen, from floods to natural disasters, such as forest fires, as well as huge, immense, prolonged winters.
We have a history, stories and knowledge. The history that is present here and that we often talk about is short. It is a small piece of what Canada is. Canada is an immensely ancient place, a place with tradition and knowledge. Indigenous people have been installed in a position to care for and administer this.
We know about prescribed burns. When we take care of forest fires at a low-risk level by destroying the fuel in the forest early, rather than stacking it up by banning prescribed burns, then we deal with what would become a much worse fire, which is what we are seeing in Alberta today. If we had invested and allowed indigenous people the jurisdiction and the resources to do what traditional wildland firefighting looks like, we would not have had this issue; we would stand a chance.
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