Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Look, I've said this a number of times already, that I think the overpoliticization of this issue has gone on far too long. That has been corroborated now by locals, by journalists in the area and by witnesses on this committee. Despite that, the Conservatives seem hell-bent on overly politicizing this and turning it into a political issue when it's one that we're discussing with experts, one that we're discussing with scientists and indigenous leaders, who virtually unanimously say that there are things that we ought to adopt in terms of policy considerations and recommendations. However, they have all asked us to depoliticize and turn down the heat on this overly politicized rhetoric.
I referenced the article entitled “Recipe for disaster: Misinformation and wildfire”. It was published last week. I would like to send it to all members of the committee so they can read it, but before I do, I'm just going to read some sections that I think are very pertinent to the recommendation that we continue this study and invite former ministers to the meeting:
Record dryness, extreme heat, high winds, and a lightning storm. This summer in Jasper National Park, all of the ingredients of a recipe for disaster were in place.
Now, two and a half months after that disaster came to pass, another set of circumstances—misinformation, toxic politics and facts-starved social media blowhards, desperately looking to pin blame—have lined up to wreak havoc.
It moves on to some discussions on Parkland and Yellowhead counties and who showed up, in particular, the aforementioned enterprise Arctic Fire. With reference to that, the article goes on to suggest—