Environment Committee on Oct. 9th, 2024

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Next is Madame Pauzé.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome to the committee, everyone.

There are many of us here today. That's great, because we want to learn and make sure we know how to respond to minimize the damage, prevent disaster and protect cities. This issue affects everyone.

Mr. Schroeder, we're here to study Bill C‑76, An Act to amend the Canada National Parks Act, which will remove barriers to rebuilding the town of Jasper by streamlining the decision-making process for local elected officials. In your opinion, will this bill be enough to remove the government's obstacles to rebuilding the town of Jasper after the wildfires?

[Randy Schroeder]

The short answer is that more needs to be done.

On the question of whether the bill addresses it, I would say that I'm highly doubtful that it does. We need intensive collaboration, which is what we would be supporting all the way through every level of government—federal, provincial and local governments—in order to achieve the true effect that we need to, and to sustain it.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Can you identify other obstacles to rebuilding the town?

[Randy Schroeder]

I will say that I would not, at this point, be able to identify true obstacles other than the willingness to get together in the same room and to establish that jurisdictional boundaries can't matter in this case. We really need to make sure—and it's in the interest of all Canadians, whether it's Jasper, Slave Lake or Fort McMurray, and there are so many more—that when these situations occur, jurisdictional barriers are removed in order to establish a true sense of public safety, especially in the recovery phase.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Right, smoke doesn't stop at a border. Smoke from the fires in Quebec ended up as far away as New York.

Ms. Kaknevicius, when you're doing your studies, do people talk to you about the consequences of climate change? Is that something they're very concerned about? You've spent 10 years working in this field. What impacts have you seen over that period of time?

[Jessica Kaknevicius]

Yes, I would say that in my work there's definitely a lot of emphasis around the impacts of climate change, especially on our forests. Whether it's recovery or future state, there's a lot of concern for the health of the forest.

There's a lot of concern, as we heard from Glenn, around drought and around future conditions. Looking at how we restore to prepare for that future climate—looking at climate adaptation, looking at climate-appropriate species and looking at planting in the appropriate way for that future forest—is critical. I would say that it's top of mind for a lot of people who are concerned about our forests.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Are you also looking at the social and economic impacts, even just the trauma that people experience for months, if not years?

[Jessica Kaknevicius]

Yes, definitely. I would say that we are personally not looking at the socio-economic impacts, but we've done some research in the past on the importance of forests to overall physical and mental well-being. They provide critical spaces for people to heal, especially after significant effects and trauma and just for overall physical health. We're not directly looking at the socio-economic impacts, but we definitely have some influence there and some experience in looking at that type of data.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

I have a question for those of you from the Department of Natural Resources. You said that an analysis of what happened in Jasper is under way. Is there an inquiry happening?

[Prof. Dan Thompson]

To be clear, we're providing documentation and analysis as a scientific organization. Words like “inquiry”.... We're basically there to—

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

I'm going to stop you there, because there was no interpretation, but I think it's fixed now. Please continue.

[Prof. Dan Thompson]

As the Department of Natural Resources, we are there to basically observe patterns of fire behaviour, quantify them and write them down. We make no inquiry or comment as to operations or anything like that. That's not our area of expertise. The role we're playing, as invited by Parks Canada, is simply to do the math behind the fire, to compute the mathematics in the fire environment.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Okay, but who's involved in analyzing what happened?

[Prof. Dan Thompson]

It's a team of exclusively NRCan scientific employees working on wildfire.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Aren't people from Parks Canada and the Department of Environment and Climate Change involved as well?

[Prof. Dan Thompson]

In this specific capacity, we're working with Parks Canada. They're providing us information. At this point, they are very busy rebuilding the community, so we're in contact continuously as needed, but the burden of the workload to do the documentation, the calculations and the scientific documentation falls, as requested by Parks Canada, on us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Mr. Boulerice, you have the floor.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being with us today for this important study.

Mr. Hargrove, you said something in your presentation that struck me. People talk a lot about the cost of preventing climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but they don't talk a lot about the economic and social costs of climate change impacts, such as forest fires, droughts and floods. You said that the summer of 2023 probably had the most forest fires, but that forest fires in the summer of 2024 may have burned more acreage.

Oh, you didn't say that? Okay. I'm sorry, I misunderstood, but do you have a sense of the growing economic impact of forest fires in Canada? Is that something you measure?

[Glenn Hargrove]

Thank you for the question.

I just want to clarify that the summer of 2024 was the second most destructive summer of the last 20 years.

To your question about the costs, that's a really good way of looking at it, because the costs of doing prevention work up front are generally lower than the cost of responding after the fact.

I'll turn to Mike Norton to see if he has any stats offhand or observations that he could provide.

[Michael Norton, Director General, Northern Forestry Centre, Department of Natural Resources]

Thanks very much.

The data that we have on the rate of return on investments in proactive mitigation range from approximately seven dollars saved for every dollar invested up to—as some studies have concluded—$14 saved for every dollar invested in mitigation. It is an active area of investigation to understand the business case for making investments in mitigation.

For forest fires and other areas related to climate adaptation, the evidence is really clear that mitigation is very cost-effective in the big picture.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Okay, thank you.

Mr. Hodges, it has been publicly reported that you've been warning the government about the dangers of a large and very dangerous forest fire in Jasper since 2017. What was your role in the government at the time and who did you warn about the real danger of a major fire in Jasper? Who did you talk to at the time?

[Ken Hodges]

First off, at that point in time, I was retired from working for the government. We sent letters to the minister; it was Minister McKenna at that time. In fact, we sent two letters, and she finally responded to the second letter. We also sent letters to the town of Jasper. We also sent letters to the Fitzhugh, which is the newspaper. We also sent letters to the staff right in Jasper itself: Jasper National Park, Canadian forest service and Parks Canada.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

You say you received a response from Minister McKenna at the time. Was that response adequate, appropriate and satisfactory?