44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 8, 2023 10:00AM
- Jun/8/23 11:45:55 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie.
I will take a moment to paint a picture of what we are up against. Often when there are problems around the world and around our country, it is hard to imagine what it is like unless we experience it ourselves. What we saw over the past couple of days in Ottawa was a little glimpse into the reality of thousands of Canadians, particularly those in indigenous communities, who were among the hardest hit. Here in Ottawa, for the first time in anyone's memory, the forest fires were so bad in the surrounding regions that the smog was covering the city of Gatineau when we looked over the river. The air was filled with smoke. Yesterday, it was so bad that we could smell the smoke in these chambers. People were told not to go outside. Children were at risk if they were outside, and people with young children were particularly worried. I have a young daughter who looks forward to going outside. She was staring out the window, but we told her that we could not go outside that day.
In reality, this is just a glimpse of what so many communities face every forest fire season, and we got a bit of what that is like in Ottawa. We saw the sky obscured with smoke, and it was difficult to breathe. People's eyes were stinging and they were coughing. This is a small example of the reality for so many people and the reality of the climate crisis.
In a crisis like this, where we cannot even breathe the air and eyes are stinging, when we cannot see the sun and cities are clouded in smog, the reality is that it is clearly 100% the result of a hotter and drier climate. This means earlier forest fire seasons, and longer and hotter seasons. We are seeing a clear trend in the face of what is clearly the result of a climate crisis, which is exacerbating an existing problem and making it a lot worse. However, in the face of this, we have the Conservatives who cannot even agree whether or not there is a climate crisis at all. They cannot even come to an agreement that it is actually a problem. Then we have a Liberal government that continues to talk a lot about the problem, but does nothing really concrete that meets the urgency of what we are up against. What we are up against is urgent, with people evacuating their homes or stranded across our country. Our country is really burning.
We have massive numbers of forest fires that are uncontrollable, and we have communities hit that have never been hit before. In the Atlantic region, I spoke with the mayor of Halifax, and he said that this is the first time he recalls forest fires within the municipality of Halifax. The Atlantic region is a very rainy region pretty much year-round except maybe for part of the summer. It is a very rainy region, and for there to be forest fires close to or in the municipality of Halifax is not normal. Also, we have forest fires early in the season. Summer has not even officially begun, and we are dealing with what looks like a horrific record-breaking year of forest fires.
However, it is not just the Atlantic region, not just here in Ontario and not just in Quebec, but across the prairies, northern communities and in the west that we are seeing forest fires raging, and there are a lot of people wondering what our leaders are doing. While the country is burning, what are parliamentarians talking about? Are they taking this seriously? Are they taking steps? Sadly, the answer is no, they are not taking this seriously. The government of the day and the official opposition both are still trying to figure out if they can just talk about it, if that is good enough, or try to argue that it does not exist. Neither approach is going to deal with this problem.
What we are proposing is a two-pronged approach. First of all, we know that we have to do more to protect our planet. We have to reduce emissions. We have to fight the climate crisis, because it is absolutely contributing to worsening conditions for forest fires. There is no doubt about that; the science is clear. On top of that, we need a better approach to firefighting. My colleague just shared some ideas about what we could be doing. However, we need a national response that acknowledges that forest fires have become so severe that every year we call for support from around the world, and provinces call on neighbouring provinces and others in the country to send in supports.
Our firefighters are incredible, and they do an incredible job. I want to acknowledge them and our first responders. However, they are tasked with an impossible job. How can they contain what is becoming worse and worse every year, when they need to rely upon so many other supports, and when international firefighters have to come?
New Democrats are calling for a better approach at the national level. We need to train up a national firefighting force that has the training and the equipment to deal with what has now become more of a reality. We know with forest fires, they literally only take a matter of days to spread. If we can catch a forest fire early and respond with enough vigour and a strong enough response, we can contain it early, but if we miss the opportunity and that window, the forest fire becomes uncontrollable.
We need a better approach. We need better forest management, we need a national team of firefighters who are properly trained and we need to make sure we have the equipment necessary. Sadly, many of our communities are fighting forest fires with inadequate, outdated equipment that is not up to the task. They are still doing a heroic job, but we have to make sure that we are better prepared.
New Democrats are calling for a national investment in an approach to forest management, having a team that is trained, prepared and equipped to deal with forest fires so they do not have to rely on international volunteers and communities giving us their support and so that provinces do not have to scrounge to find ways to deal with this. We need a national team that is prepared to do this work.
I also want to talk about what is happening in Quebec. In Chibougamau, the mayor had to ask people to leave with as few belongings as possible. She even recommended leaving pets behind. People across the country are afraid, and rightly so.
However, the current problem with the climate crisis is that, on one hand, we have the Conservative Party and its leader who do not believe in climate change, and on the other, we have the Liberals who talk the talk, but do not walk the walk. They are not doing what is necessary to win this fight. The government has always alternated between these two parties.
I simply do not accept that this is the best we can do. Once again, the Liberals acted too slowly, which, as I said earlier, is inexcusable in the case of wildfires. This is frustrating because, every year, the number of wildfires increases and the Liberals learn nothing from it.
The federal government does not always have to wait for a crisis to occur before it takes action. The government has a vital role to play when it comes to prevention, preparation and protection. Rather than subsidizing big oil and spending $30 billion on a pipeline, the Liberals could invest to strengthen preventive measures and expand the national Firesmart program. They could train, equip and assign more initial fire control teams to deal with fires before they get bigger; stockpile emergency firefighting equipment, including planes; develop a process to deliver additional resources to high-risk wildfire areas before fires break out; renew the existing fleet of air tankers, many of which are 30 years old; and modernize and repair the infrastructure to support those aircraft.
There are solutions. The government just needs to have the will and the courage to take action.
It is clear that we have solutions. We know it needs to be done. It is really a question of whether or not the government is prepared to do what is necessary. We cannot continually be in the cycle of just responding to a crisis. It is not good enough to say that we stand with communities when we could have prevented the worst from happening. The federal government has an important and vital role to play. It is too often that a crisis happens, we are scrambling to respond and communities are left devastated.
Let us take this crisis seriously, let us respond to the climate crisis with the seriousness and urgency that it requires and let us invest in a better national approach to deal with forest fires.
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- Jun/8/23 11:56:22 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we had an emergency debate on the forest fires given how serious they are. In that emergency debate, not a single member of Parliament in the Conservative Party from Alberta showed up despite how serious the matter was.
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- Jun/8/23 11:56:59 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I should clarify. One member of the Conservative Party from Alberta was there. I retract saying that no one was there. There was one person there out of many Alberta MPs.
The matter is serious—
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- Jun/8/23 11:57:24 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is serious that we are still faced with a Conservative Party that does not accept that a hotter and drier climate is directly contributing to worsening forest fires. We have to tackle the climate crisis if we truly want to make sure communities are safe. The Conservatives are still struggling to understand that concept.
The Liberals talk about that and have the power to actually do things but are not doing them. They have the power to make things better, the power to end fossil fuel subsidies, invest in clean energy and reduce emissions, but they are not doing that.
On top of that, we have the power to have a national response with proper funding and training to equip a national forest firefighting team and that is not being done. That is what we are up against.
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- Jun/8/23 11:59:28 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, sadly, as I mentioned, the only two parties that have been in power in Canada have been Conservative and Liberal. The bar has been set very low for the Liberal government to be the government that has done the most. That is not a compliment to the government.
It is a testament to how poorly governments in the past have responded that the government's inaction and lack of real urgency are considered the most aggressive approach to the climate crisis. That is a sad state of affairs. That is a sad testament to where we are. We have to do a lot better.
As I said in my speech, this cannot be the best that our country can do. The inaction from the Liberals and disbelief from the Conservatives that we even have a climate crisis cannot be the best that our country has to offer. I believe we can do a lot more and we need to do a lot more.
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- Jun/8/23 12:00:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not agree with the Liberal government giving billions of dollars to oil companies that have made huge profits, record profits, in fact.
We must force the government to invest more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We must invest more money to encourage clean energy and invest in businesses that are tackling the climate crisis. We must not give money to oil companies that are making record profits. We must force the government to do what is necessary.
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