Environment Committee on Oct. 2nd, 2024

[Darlene Upton]

It's national, so it will—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Okay, it's national.

Mr. Leslie, go ahead for four minutes.

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to pick up on the last question I had regarding an assessment of the remaining deadwood.

Is Parks Canada planning to undertake that assessment?

[Darlene Upton]

Thanks for going back to that question.

Yes. We manage a lot of land. We do fire management planning for all the sites that have fire risk. The focus of some of the more detailed work is on areas where the high values are. We're very focused on values at risk. This informs planning and where we invest in prescribed burns and mechanical removal and just the planning in general.

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

How long—Mr. Campbell, can I get you to commit to this once it is completed?—will it take for this assessment to be completed, and can this committee have that assessment tabled so that we can understand the risk of deadwood remaining after this tragedy?

[Darlene Upton]

I'm not sure exactly what you're asking. I'm sorry.

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

How long will the assessment take, and when can this committee expect to receive a tabling of that information so that we can understand the risk?

In the northwest, as my colleague representing that region pointed out, there is still a severe risk to the area. I understand there needs to be a thorough assessment done. How long will that take, and when can the committee receive that information?

[Darlene Upton]

I'm sorry. I can't answer that question at the moment.

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Okay. I'll pivot, then.

Mr. Campbell—

[Andrew Campbell]

If I may, I think we would be more than happy to give you the Jasper fire plan, the fire prevention plan we have for Jasper and the resources timeline—

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

I'd like to know specifically about the deadwood.

[Andrew Campbell]

It's online.

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

I appreciate that you can point me to a website.

I'm going to pivot a little here. I'll go back to what I mentioned about private security.

I understand that you are not familiar with the specific company, Arctic Fire Safety Services. Reading through this email, it is pretty remarkable that there were 20 fire trucks and 50 firefighters denied entry.

Will you commit to doing a full investigation into how on earth—when resources are deployed with all the equipment necessary to help suppress a major fire catastrophe—that could happen, and what operations need to change within Parks Canada to prevent them from being denied entry into the park?

[Darlene Upton]

I can say two things about that.

I don't have knowledge of the situation, but resource requests come via CIFFC. We work with them because there are protocols and controls on that.

There's also a time element, potentially, to this. I don't know.

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Yes. It looks like they were delayed in getting entry for about three days.

My question is, will there be an investigation so we can better understand? Can you report that information back to this committee so that we can better understand how this could happen and how it could be prevented by lessons learned for the future?

[Darlene Upton]

There are always lessons learned and after-action reviews on any major fires we have. There absolutely will be something, and we will look to learn lessons from that. We will take a look at what that situation was.

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Okay.

People have talked about our great public officials doing great work. The people on the ground who were fighting that fire are the heroes. That was an incredibly.... Hearing those stories from on the ground through GOC and things like that, we know that it was a devastatingly difficult fire. My point is that it didn't need to be that devastating.

The real hero is Morgan Kitchen, who lost his life fighting that fire. These are the real heroes on the ground, and we should all have the utmost respect for the work they are doing.

We had the Minister of Emergency Preparedness come here and tell us about emergency response. They need to change the name of that department if it is going to truly begin preparing for emergencies. It was extremely disappointing.

My entire concern is with Parks Canada lacking the humility to say, “Maybe we could have done a bit better. Maybe we could have prevented the high level of heat burning through that forest.” They should just admit that they can do better. Although it's politically not a great attribute of the current government, I expect our officials can say—not just lessons learned, but have a little humility—“We could have done better.” Just take a bit of responsibility.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

The time is up.

We'll go to Mr. van Koeverden, please.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Thanks very much, Chair.

Once again, thank you to the officials who have spent the last couple of hours here.

Our collective dismay, on this side at least, is that this issue continues to be politicized. I just want to say that I don't believe natural disasters and wildfires are a political issue. I think they need to be managed and dealt with by government officials, and that's a completely non-partisan thing.

Nobody—no politician, regardless of their party, background or region—believes we shouldn't do more to prevent and respond to these natural disasters or that we shouldn't invest more money in wildfire services. However, I think it's worth pointing out that those institutions—Parks Canada and the national wildfire services through Parks Canada—and climate change mitigation efforts were all starved by the federal government under Prime Minister Harper. We've invested billions of dollars in measures to ensure that Canada is more resilient to climate change and to ensure that we save lives and prevent these horrible catastrophes from impacting human life.

My question is simple. I appreciate Mr. Leslie referring to the firefighters as heroes, because I completely agree. However, they're hometown heroes, because the people in Alberta who were fighting those fires were doing it in their own backyard. People who manage the forests were doing it in their own backyard. They were cleaning up and preventing the loss of life in their own communities.

I know this has been a really difficult and devastating time for folks, and to make matters worse, now we're politicizing it—or at least the Conservatives are politicizing it and making it seem as though....

Obviously, in retrospect, there's always an opportunity to reflect and say that there are things we could have done a bit better, but I want to once again commend you on your work. I want to ensure that Canadians are aware of how prepared Jasper was and how prepared Parks Canada always is in the face of these types of disasters to respond quickly, efficiently and effectively.

I think we're probably getting to the end of this meeting. I would love to hear from you about anybody who's been personally impacted and you've discussed this with, whether that's one of the officials or the firefighters, or any of the families who have been impacted, and what they would like to see. I'm asking in good faith for you to amplify the voice of somebody on the ground who's been impacted, because, frankly, I've had enough of this overly politicized perspective.

What I'd like to know is what a Jasperite wants us to do next.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Answer in 45 seconds, please.

[Andrew Campbell]

I have staff meetings with the 500 employees we have on the ground there. It's devastating to see that 200 of them have lost their homes. It's devastating to talk to them. It's devastating that they were the ones who were helping to get everybody else out. They were the ones fighting the fire. They were the ones running the incident command centre. They were the ones providing meals. They were the ones making sure that people got in.

I think the thing they are looking for—and, certainly, what our employees are looking for—is that there is and will continue to be a Jasper that they can call home going into the future. They are resilient for that, and they are looking forward to everything we can do to help them do that. That is why the piece of legislation before you is important. It provides a North Star for how the rebuild will happen.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Campbell.

If I could, I would just ask for a brief indulgence. I would like to simply ask the committee for unanimous consent that the next time you meet with the 500 staff in Jasper, the next time you communicate with them, you express both our gratitude and our sympathy for what they've gone through in the last year.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Is there unanimous consent?

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

That would be from the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development.