Evidence of meeting #124 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 fires.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Bloc
Monique Pauzé Bloc Repentigny, QC
Thank you to all the witnesses for being here with us.
Mr. Messier, your testimony only goes to show the extent of the problems caused by climate change. You spoke about fires, insects and diseases. You put it very well when you said the problem is not unique to Jasper, it is everywhere on the planet. This is not good news, but I think it is very real.
We know that smoke knows no borders. We remember the fires of the summer of 2023 in Quebec, when the smoke travelled as far as New York, and even to the entire northeastern United States. As well, Mr. Flannigan talked about ember showers, which can start fires in other locations. Certainly improvements can be made over what was done in Jasper.
Do you think there needs to be better integration and analysis of provincial and federal environmental monitoring data?
Professor of Forest Ecology, As an Individual
I would say that the provinces and the federal government are already working together very well when it comes to researchers collaborating and data being shared. One thing I mentioned was the DIVERSE project, which I am currently leading, in which we are collaborating with provincial and federal government researchers. We are trying to put all this data together so that we have tools we can use to better measure the vulnerability of our forests and determine what we can do to reduce the risks involved in managing them. Those risks go beyond fires, and this is a point I like to stress. There is also the growing risk of mortality caused by exotic insects or diseases and by drought or wind, among other things.
I think we are seeing a good level of co‑operation. Obviously, it can be improved, but I think there is already very good collaboration, at least when it comes to research.
Bloc
Monique Pauzé Bloc Repentigny, QC
You spoke earlier about the problem actually being planet-wide. Are there things happening in other places that you are aware of that could also improve forest management or emergency management?
Professor of Forest Ecology, As an Individual
One of the positive aspects of research being done worldwide is that we are all working together. There are no secrets; the research is public and it is being published in publicly available journals. There are numerous collaborative projects. In fact, in my DIVERSE project, I have collaborators in the United States and pretty much every country in the world. We share our information, our data, and our experiences, to try to develop approaches that will be useful in every country on earth. This kind of collaboration is happening on a large scale. I would even say that Canada is a world leader in this area.
Bloc
Monique Pauzé Bloc Repentigny, QC
Of course, we are talking about climate change. We constantly hear about mitigation and adaptation. We can see that as climate change accelerates and temperatures rise, we also have to adapt faster. What can or should a government do in this regard to help plan the allocation of emergency services when multiple catastrophic events occur? That is what we are facing now.
Professor of Forest Ecology, As an Individual
That is a very good question, but it is a bit outside my area of expertise.
I think we need to try to move away from the way we are doing things now. We need to realize that we have always thought that the forest was relatively stable, it did not change, climate was constant, and we could predict what was going to happen in the next 150 years. That is no longer the case. Change is also happening fast. The level of uncertainty is rising. So the situation is going to call for completely different approaches and also for changes to our laws and regulations.
Every province of Canada has regulations requiring that the same tree species or group of species be planted as were cut. If we continue doing forestry this way, however, we are going to ensure that our forests are ill adapted to future changes. So I think there should be major regulatory changes to facilitate adaptation. We also need to expand forest diversity, not just within a stand, but also in the broader landscape. Doing this would reduce the spread of insects and fires.
We have to adopt a variety of approaches. In fact, when I give my presentations, I often say that we absolutely have to almost completely change the way we manage our forests. The good news for the forestry industry is that logging could help to speed up the adaptation process. In that case, however, diversification would have to be encouraged.
Bloc
Monique Pauzé Bloc Repentigny, QC
On the subject of forestry practices, when the minister appeared before this committee, he said there were buffer zones, firewalls, that were important and might be necessary in the future. Briefly, what are the characteristics of an effective buffer zone?
Professor of Forest Ecology, As an Individual
Certainly it is becoming increasingly common to suggest planting deciduous forests around municipalities. Obviously, we could remove the forests completely, but that would create somewhat desert-like landscapes. So we need to have more deciduous trees. In the boreal forest, this means poplars and birches, in particular, which go a long way to reducing the risk of fire. Adding deciduous trees would go a long way to reducing the risk of fire in our forests just about everywhere around municipalities.
Liberal
NDP
Laurel Collins NDP Victoria, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank all the witnesses for being here.
My first question is for Mr. Flannigan.
We've seen that climate change is making our wildfire seasons more intense and longer. They're having a devastating impact on communities.
Dealing with wildfires in the past has primarily been left up to the provinces and territories, with some support from the military. Earlier this year, the chief of the defence staff talked about how they won't be able to fill the gaps and the increasing need as a result of wildfires.
You mentioned a national firefighting service. This is something that my New Democrat colleagues and I have been pushing for.
Can you talk a little bit about the need for a national firefighting service? What would that mean when it comes to fighting wildfires in Canada?
October 7th, 2024 / 11:55 a.m.
BC Innovation Research Chair, Predictive Services, Emergency Management and Fire Science, As an Individual
The United States has something called FEMA, or Federal Emergency Management Agency. We have nothing like that in Canada.
Fire management is the responsibility of the landowners—provinces, territories and Parks Canada, and the Department of National Defence does a little bit as well. They help each other out. It's a brotherhood, but sometimes you get overwhelmed and you need extra resources.
What I'm suggesting is a national agency to work hand in glove, as a unified command system, with Parks Canada and B.C. and Alberta or whoever, before emergencies actually arrive.
We have the capability to know when extreme fire weather is coming, and extremes really do drive the fire world. Simply, there are three ingredients for a wildfire. It's the vegetation, which is the fuel; ignitions; and the weather.
I'm biased, but I think weather is the key driver. We're seeing more extreme fire weather and we're seeing more extreme fires, and we're going to continue to see that. Seven billion dollars was spent on disasters this summer in Canada alone—that's from the Insurance Bureau of Canada—and that's only increasing. We need to deal with this—
NDP
Laurel Collins NDP Victoria, BC
Mr. Flannigan, I'm sorry to interrupt.
When you talked about weather, I overheard one of my Conservative colleagues say that it's the one you can't do anything about, so focus on the others.
This is something we've heard when it comes to combatting climate change—that somehow we need to throw up our hands.
Can you speak a little bit about how climate change is an existential crisis and that we need to be doing everything we can to combat the climate emergency?
BC Innovation Research Chair, Predictive Services, Emergency Management and Fire Science, As an Individual
In Canada, our area of burn has quadrupled since the 1970s. My colleagues and I attribute this to human-caused climate change. It's not just fire; it's flooding and a rise in sea levels. We are changing the climate because of our human activities, primarily greenhouse gases. Until we do something as a society, a global society of people, as communities, states, provinces, territories....
We have to solve this problem. The scary thing is that even if we stop producing greenhouse gases today, we'll continue to warm for 20 or 30 years. A warmer world means more disasters.
NDP
Laurel Collins NDP Victoria, BC
Thank you so much.
Ms. Potter, you talked about the need for a national wildfire preparedness plan. We know that Canadians expect their government to protect them from wildfires. Businesses expect the government to protect the economy from the impacts.
Can you talk a little bit about what is needed when it comes to a national wildfire preparedness plan?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
Thank you for the question.
I think a coordination of effort is something that we are looking for here. From an industry perspective, we are doing that ourselves. We wanted to make sure, especially following 2022 and 2023, when we saw devastation and mass evacuation, that from the tourism perspective, while residents and employees were looked after, the visitor was looked after as well. We came together as an industry to create our own national plans. I think that needs to happen as well.
NDP
Laurel Collins NDP Victoria, BC
It's surprising that even after the devastating, record-breaking wildfire season of 2023, this government hasn't actually created a national wildfire preparedness plan that is adequate to protect our communities and protect our economy. They haven't filled the gaps that will be left by the military not having the capacity to respond to these fires.
Maybe I'll go to you, Mr. Messier. You talked about the need to change our forestry management practices. This seems like another gap that has been overlooked, given that year after year we're seeing the increases. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Professor of Forest Ecology, As an Individual
Yes. Actually, I wrote in a newspaper that we need a Marshall Plan. We need the same level of effort we had after the Second World War to transform Europe. We need a Marshall Plan in terms of how we manage our forests, not just in Canada but in the world. A lot of scientists are showing tree mortalities increasing in all our forests. Forests are dying. I was in Germany three years ago when there was a drought. There was not one drop of rain for five months. More than 30% to 40% of the forest is now dying.
We will have droughts in our forests more and more. We have more and more insects and disease coming from all over the world. I think we need a really big effort. This is what I'm advocating here. We will have more fires, but we will have more droughts, more mortality and more insects—
Professor of Forest Ecology, As an Individual
It's all of this that we need to address.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Thanks very much.
We'll go to the second round, which will be reduced to four minutes and two minutes.
Go ahead, Mr. Soroka.
Conservative
Gerald Soroka Conservative Yellowhead, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to start off with you, Mr. Liivam.
You said that you were not legally allowed to be there. Could you explain why you were not?
Canadian Registered Safety Professional and President, Arctic Fire Safety Services Limited
I'll explain what was explained to us by the operations section chief, the second-in-command to the incident commander. As far as I know, we were allowed to be there, because this was through the Parks Canada liaison person and our client who made these arrangements for us to be in there. I guess there's no legislative process to allow contract firefighters to be in there on behalf of other parties.
That must be the reasoning for that, but we did not show up there unanticipated. These were arrangements made on behalf of our Pursuit Collection client and Parks Canada before we showed up. It's not as if we showed up at the door and demanded to be let in like barbarians. It was our expectation that when we got to the gate, we were supposed to be permitted to go in and do our job to help protect the economic engine of Jasper.
