Evidence of meeting #122 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was parks.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Steven Guilbeault Liberal Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
In fact, I disagree with you entirely. I have demonstrated to you that our government—
At the time, your party's government invested $2 million. Our government has invested approximately $80 million in forest fire prevention; $2 million versus $80 million, that's the difference between you and us.
That said, I understand that more needs to be done. I'm fully aware that more needs to be done. I'm the first to admit that. My team and I were notified as soon as an advisory was issued.
September 25th, 2024 / 5:30 p.m.
Conservative
Gerald Soroka Conservative Yellowhead, AB
Thank you, Minister.
Former MP for Yellowhead Jim Eglinski brought this forward on the floor of the House of Commons in 2017 to the environment minister, who then said that they take this serious issue very seriously. Then, in 2018, the Jasper Park superintendent said that Parks Canada takes this issue very seriously. Once again, nothing was done. In 2018, two professional foresters wrote to the previous environmental minister saying that it is not a matter of “if” but “when” the town of Jasper will burn. Your government didn't even respond.
Time and time again, you say that you take very seriously how our forests are going to be protected and towns are going to be protected, but there's been no action. Does the government accept responsibility for the failure to protect the people of the town of Jasper, yes or no?
Liberal
Liberal
Steven Guilbeault Liberal Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
In fact, roughly speaking, we've invested 40 times more than the Stephen Harper government in forest fire protection in Jasper.
Liberal
Liberal
Sophie Chatel Liberal Pontiac, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I find it quite incredible to hear the Conservatives talk about forest fires and how catastrophic they are. Indeed, given global warming and the fact that you Conservatives are not proposing any climate measures, you'll have to get used to it, because there will be a lot of forest fires, and many towns and villages will burn down. That's why it's important to have a climate plan. If you want to know the concrete repercussions of years of inaction, here they are. So, wake up.
Liberal
Steven Guilbeault Liberal Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
Mr. Chair, since I've never used the interpretation system, I don't know how it works, and my colleague would like to know.
Liberal
Steven Guilbeault Liberal Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
Can someone explain how the translation system works? I never use it, so I don't know how it works.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Oh, yes, it's all new. They've changed the equipment, and even I've...
No, we're stopping it.
Come on, Dan, come on. That was a nice try.
Can you hear me in English now? That's perfect.
Please continue, Mrs. Chatel.
Liberal
Sophie Chatel Liberal Pontiac, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Shepherd, I'd like to learn more about what happened on the ground, that is to say, the conditions before the fire.
What were the normal conditions compared to the conditions just before the fire?
Landon Shepherd Wildfire Incident Commander, Jasper National Park , Parks Canada Agency
The conditions leading up to the ignitions on July 22 were quite extreme. It was drier, with a longer period of dry weather than we had experienced for the last several years when we had quite extreme conditions. It was over 20 days since the last significant rain event was recorded at any of our weather stations, and strictly speaking, it moved into almost the 99th percentile of dry conditions for Jasper, so all fuels were available to burn under those conditions.
Liberal
Sophie Chatel Liberal Pontiac, QC
Can you explain to me what happened on the ground, concretely, and what you and your colleagues did?
Wildfire Incident Commander, Jasper National Park , Parks Canada Agency
When the first of four fires were reported, it came from a member of the public, and it was near the TMX pumping station for the pipeline. The call came in because it's right beside the highway, and we actually had our fire duty officer on scene within minutes of that report. Within minutes of that report, that fire was already growing significantly, and it moved into the tree canopy, which made it very difficult to suppress.
We had a helicopter dispatched, also within minutes, that was able to start bucketing, and crews that were able to start work on that fire. Despite the fact that there is a highway and a railway keeping the sides initially somewhat contained, the fire grew under quite strong winds to the point that the bucketing wasn't sufficient.
Air tanker support was requested from Alberta, and they were not able to assist. They desperately do want to assist. We work quite closely with the Alberta wildfire service and the B.C. wildfire service, and they weren't able to assist because they were very busy with wildfires. Some fires had lasted since last season. It's really hard for them too when they're asked to help and are not able to provide that. However, they combed the province, and the tanker groups either were already engaged in protecting communities or were smoked in and not able to lift off.
My colleague in Edson, whom I had initially reached out to, then petitioned B.C. to see if they had any tanker groups that could come to assist, and they also were in a similar state. They had a tanker group in Castlegar that would have been able to fly towards the coast but could not come east towards us and assist. That was unfortunate for that one fire.
While we were engaged with that fire and were working to keep people safe on the highway, which is right beside where that fire started, we got reports of two other fires. It turned out to be three other fires, about 30 kilometres south of the community. We continued to engage on the fire that was close to the community and was affecting traffic. We worked both to stop the flow of traffic and to turn people around who were headed into harm's way, and we also tried to secure that fire so that we would have a passage along that road and then could get information on what was happening to the south.
Because of how rapidly it was growing, the next obvious thing was that there are campgrounds immediately north of that north fire, and we started evacuating those campgrounds when it became apparent that we weren't going to stop the head of the fire, even with having resources—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Thank you. It pains me to cut you off, because it's very interesting to see how things unfolded. However, there's a six-minute time limit.
We'll go to Madame Pauzé.
Bloc
Monique Pauzé Bloc Repentigny, QC
Indeed, everything you are telling us is impressive. Your experience is very broad.
However, other people and other experts have experience. Earlier, my colleague Mr. Soroka mentioned the study by Mr. Begin and Mr. Hodges. They have submitted their work to Parks Canada's Jasper superintendent, Mr. Fehr. I'm sure there's a lot of expertise at Parks Canada, but the work of these people, who have 40 years of expertise, was convincing. They said, for example, that it would only take a “30‑30‑30” day, as they called it, with 30% humidity, a temperature of 30 degrees Celsius and winds blowing at 30 kilometres an hour to start a fire. I think that illustrates the dangers quite well.
The superintendent of Jasper Park says he's looking to improve procedures; it seems to me there's some important and interesting expertise here from these two researchers.
Do you think that contributions and expertise from outside the federal Parks Canada Agency could be better integrated in the future?
Liberal
Steven Guilbeault Liberal Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
In fact, I've said it many times, but the work we do, whether it's in Jasper National Park, Banff or elsewhere in the country, is done in partnership with other collaborators.
Let's take Jasper as an example. For almost 30 years, we've been working to prepare the town for forest fires. In terms of the buffer zone, we've worked with the municipality of Jasper and Parks Canada, the Government of Alberta, and indigenous peoples. So there's a lot of input coming from outside.
There's a lot of expertise at Parks Canada, but we also work with many partners to try to reduce the risks. It's important to understand that we can't eliminate forest fires, floods, or heat waves in Canada. What we have to do is try to be as prepared as possible.
Bloc
Monique Pauzé Bloc Repentigny, QC
What I understood from what these experts said is that they wanted to give their research to the Parks Canada Agency, but there was no collaboration. Parks Canada refused to give the researchers a copy of its intervention plan, saying that everything was fine. In my opinion, there was clearly a lack of cooperation with people who had over 40 years of expertise.
I'm going to talk about another area where people would benefit from talking to each other. I'm talking about the drought monitoring map for Alberta, which is produced by the provincial government. For Jasper Park, it says “Stage 1 - Monitoring and Observation”. On the other hand, the federal government's Canadian Drought Monitor indicates abnormally dry regional conditions.
How is the reconciliation between data from provincial and federal analyses done, even though you've told me there have been links between municipal and provincial levels? Also, how often is this mapping updated?
It seems clear to me that while Alberta says it's monitoring the situation, the federal government finds regional conditions abnormally dry.
Liberal
Steven Guilbeault Liberal Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
As you can understand, the federal government's objective is obviously not to impose or dictate its own standards and ways of doing things.
There's a partnership, there's an exchange of information and collaboration. Secondly, the criteria are not necessarily the same from one level of government to another. Data analysis is not necessarily the same. It's true that we were perhaps more concerned about the situation than some governments were. I think—we heard it earlier—that these were pretty extraordinary conditions in terms of low precipitation.
First of all, there wasn't much snow in this region last winter, and there was little precipitation in the spring. Indeed, certain conditions were in place. A buffer zone had already been created, but you can't change a region's weather conditions to bring rain or...
Bloc
Monique Pauzé Bloc Repentigny, QC
No, of course not, but this is the kind of reconciliation that may be missing between the data from the provincial analyses and the data from the federal analysis.
How often is the mapping updated?
Liberal
Steven Guilbeault Liberal Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
Together with the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment, we're working to sign federal, provincial and territorial agreements on adaptation; we'll be able to better share our information. We'll also be able to work more effectively together to better prepare Canadians to cope with the effects of climate change.
Work is more advanced with some territories than others, but I will tell you that, in this regard, all the provinces and territories and the federal government want to work together. The federal government can do some of it, the provinces can do some of it, and so can the municipalities, but it's by all of us working together that we can get there.
Bloc
Monique Pauzé Bloc Repentigny, QC
Let me make one last comment about the work and the lack of coordination, or the lack of openness about taking into account what experts have said. Mr. Ken Hodges, a forester, had this to say: “If we don't reduce dead material in the forest, we run the risk of a fire similar to the one in Waterton [National Park].” In 2017, a fire caused by lightning destroyed 30% of this national park, and forest firefighters took two weeks to bring it under control.
There are specialized researchers at Parks Canada. In fact, there are researchers in every government department, but there are also researchers outside the government. The lack of coordination between the two groups, and the lack of openness to sharing data, means that we're not making any headway. There will be more and more unfortunate events due to climate change. Therefore, data exchange should be more and more frequent.
Liberal
Steven Guilbeault Liberal Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
I don't know if there was a question there, Mr. Chair.
Liberal