Evidence of meeting #123 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 fire.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Emergency Management and Programs Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
Just to assure the member, Chair, yes, we are connected to the public health portfolio as part of our regular—
Assistant Deputy Minister, Emergency Management and Programs Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
—meetings, in terms of managing emergencies.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
Thank you, Chair. My question will be for Parks Canada.
My colleague Mr. Leslie was just asking about the emails, and we had a conversation about this last week.
If what you're saying is true, Mr. Campbell, why is there no record of any discussion of mechanical removal of trees in any of the information this committee received through the access to information request?
It would only seem reasonable to me. I'm a former Parks Canada and Alberta Parks person. I worked for the public service for most of my life prior to becoming a member of Parliament. I know exactly how these conversations go.
If what you're saying is true, it should be clearly outlined in a document. Why is it not in the document? You say it's about mechanical removal. There is nothing here that suggests to me that any conversation, at all, was happening about mechanical removal.
Senior Vice-President, Operations, Parks Canada Agency
I guess you'll have to look at what was in discussion at Parks Canada at that time. If you look, we always have a number of different techniques that we employ. That's what, in fact....
What Mr. Leslie read in the second email was from the head of the fire group, Tamaini Snaith. At that time, Dr. Snaith said, in fact, that we wouldn't be looking at that. For Darlene and myself—
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
I want to home in on one part of that conversation.
This sentence is very important, because we were just talking about firebreaks: “It is critical to continue those kind of burns. It is how they maintain the [community firebreak], and when they fall behind, it is very difficult to catch up.”
Senior Vice-President, Operations, Parks Canada Agency
It is one of the methods of the community firebreak. I think we can all agree that mechanical removal is another method for creating firebreaks. What Dr. Snaith was saying was that we were still going to move ahead. That was the advice that came up to Darlene and me—that we would continue. That is what we agreed to. We would continue to do that.
Now, can I just—
Senior Vice-President, Operations, Parks Canada Agency
—give you, in one second, one slight piece of context?
Is the individual who sent that somebody who had been evacuated for four weeks the year before and had just gone through a town council meeting—
Senior Vice-President, Operations, Parks Canada Agency
—with Fort Smith? At the meeting, they questioned whether we should still be doing prescribed burns.
Senior Vice-President, Operations, Parks Canada Agency
That's the political pressure he is discussing.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
The reality is that we had a billion dollars' worth of assets burnt in town. The firebreaks did not work. The prescribed burn conversation made it very clear that there were political considerations and factors involved.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
I haven't even asked my question yet, Mr. Campbell.
I mentioned this earlier, when Minister Guilbeault was here: The Excelsior fire had the wind blowing the other way. It would have come right down the Maligne Valley, and you would have had this problem 10 years earlier. The pine beetle infestation is leaving virtually every pine tree in Jasper National Park as standing as dead, dry firewood. It burns fiery hot. To say that you've never seen or couldn't expect a fire of this magnitude.... When somebody says that, I call BS. That's simply not true. You ought to know. Everybody knows. The people who live there know. People who live in the woods know. People who start campfires know that a dry, standing dead tree is exactly what you go and look for.
If people say that we've never seen trees blown down in a national park before, it is simply not true. I've ridden my horse through the Boundary Trail in Jasper National Park—
Liberal
Sophie Chatel Liberal Pontiac, QC
When somewhat vulgar words are used, the interpretation isn't very—
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
Okay. Thank you, Chair.
It's simply not true. I was a North Boundary warden in Jasper in 1995. I rode through the Welbourne blowdown. Swaths of trees were all blown down in the same direction. Winds go through the mountain parks. They howl through the mountain parks. They howl through the mountain valleys. To suggest you don't know the wind is going to push the fire is simply not true.
I have several examples of private sector companies that were in discussions to provide relief and could have provided relief to the town, and they were either turned around or ordered to leave town instead of providing fire protection.
I want to know if you, Mr. Campbell—I asked the minister previously if he was going to be able to do this—will undertake to provide to this committee all documents pertaining to the procurement of equipment and private contractors, as well as anybody involved in fire suppression and fire suppression planning for Jasper National Park since 2017. Will you provide them to this committee within the next two weeks?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
We're way over the time.
We'll go to Mr. Longfield. Maybe he will ask Mr. Campbell to continue with that.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
Thank you, Chair
Again, thank you to the witnesses for stepping into the political arena here and trying to help us with our job, which is one of governance and making sure that questions are being asked. We're not the professionals who know whether mechanical removal or burns are the best decision of the day. We employ people to make those decisions based on their expertise.
For us to say we're experts, we're not experts. I've done a lot of canoeing and I've got lost a few times. I've missed a few portages. I know there's a lot of dry wood in any bush I've ever been lost in.
It reminds me of the conversations in the United States when Donald Trump was president, saying that in Finland, they go in with rakes. I'm trying to picture somebody with a rake trying to solve the problem. I think that's the problem when we politicize discussions like this. Non-experts are providing what they believe are expert opinions, so thank you for your expert opinions.
I mentioned Finland. Somehow, other countries are fighting the same challenges with the climate crisis, but they still provide firefighters to Canada. Could you describe what that process looks like? How do other countries pitch in? How does Canada pitch in when needed?
Vice-President, Protected Areas Establishment and Conservation, Parks Canada Agency
I'll start with the CIFFC.
The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, which Parks Canada is a member of, is the coordinating body. It has three main goals: resource sharing, mutual aid and information sharing. We have a mutual aid resources sharing, or MARS, agreement with it. It provides equipment, personnel and aircraft. That is very well coordinated in Canada.
Parks Canada also has agreements with Australia, the United States and others for forest resources. Parks Canada forest firefighters have gone out and led firefighting incidents in the States and in Australia. There's a great deal of coordination within Canada for all these resources. They operate seamlessly. We all use a similar command system, so we speak the same language when it comes to an incident.
I'll stop there and allow my colleagues to add a little to it.