Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Feb. 6th, 2018

[Franklin Condo]

The fact over here is that we're having a hard time to recruit volunteers because we don't get paid to be a firefighter over here. I think the budget is too low. We don't have the funding to pay firefighters. At first we were getting paid, and after that our bank had stopped everything, and then everybody had no interest, and now they're going off and on. We still have 10 firefighters, but it's off and on, and sometimes we could maybe have three or four. We don't have the 10 at the same time all the time. That's the biggest problem we're facing over here.

Equipment-wise, we had purchased the pumper only last year, and the SCBAs are all brand new. Even though we have brand new equipment, we don't have the firefighters. If there's any major fire, of course in our community there are a lot of bystanders who want to help, but if it comes to a fire or a major thing, there are safety issues that come into consideration, so that's another reason.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Good. Thank you. My time is up.

[Franklin Condo]

As I said, for the fire truck, it's more than a 20-year span, so we're looking at the possibility that if something happens, it could break down during a fire, and that's it.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

We're going to close with MP Saganash.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

How much time do I have? One minute?

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

We agreed to give you five minutes. Some members have to leave, but you go ahead.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I thank the presenters as well. You've touched on a lot of things that the previous panel spoke about, so I think we've covered....

I do want to first mention this, Madam Chair. I think Timothy is the second Saganash who ever appeared at this committee. I know that he looked a bit nervous yesterday when I spoke with him, but allow me to tell him he did okay.

I just have a very quick question about prevention. I know that you guys, Timothy, do prevention in the community, in particular with elders. I told you the story about my mom and the first time she lived in a house. She never knew what a thermostat was, and she put it all the way up. When it got too hot in the house, she would open the windows instead of putting it down.

What kinds of things do you guys do in the community in that regard?

[Timothy Saganash Stringer]

Thank you, Mr. Saganash.

Yes, we do have fire prevention programs. We have a fire prevention officer in our community, Mr. John Sanipass, who regrets he couldn't be here today. We can't just give them a pamphlet, because the first language is aboriginal, Cree. All the stuff, the material you can get online, is in English or French. To ask somebody 80 years old to come to the fire hall so that we can teach them something is not right, so we make the effort to go to their doorstep and ask if they will allow us to come in and teach them how to use such things as thermostats. They didn't have thermostats growing up. If you implement that when they're 60 years old, they're not going to be used to it.

Another thing is fire extinguishers. If they don't have fire extinguishers, we bring them in and show them how to use them. Hold this, squeeze that, and aim at the base. That's some of what we do when we do our residential visits. We try to consider our public, whether it's kids, 20-year-olds, or elders.

Another project we were very proud of this past summer was being community fire smart. I don't know if you've heard of that, but we're the first community in Quebec, native or non-native, to be fire smart. That's a pretty big feat. We worked in collaboration with our forest fire firefighting agency in Quebec, which is SOPFEU, Société de protection des fôrets contre le feu.

Basically, we went house to house and into people's yards and told them how to pile their wood and make sure their grass is cut. Forest fires are inevitable. They will happen eventually, and they have happened. Yes, knock on wood. There will be a forest fire, and if one occurs, we want to make sure we're prepared. This is something that's ongoing, and I encourage other communities to follow our lead.

I was very fortunate to work with SOPFEU on this, and it's something that I'm very proud of. I'm especially proud of going to the elders. We want the people to help us do it, but if it's an elder, it's different. We went in there and did it for them. We stacked their wood, gave them some quick tips, and off we went.

[Chief Matilda Ramjattan]

We focus on emergency management and try to promote fire safety. Our fire chief goes into the school and makes himself available, and they do fire drills.

What really gives me fear is that all this that you can see on this map is forestry. I don't have firefighters trained to fight forest fires, and we don't have the necessary equipment. I try to avoid any kind of conversation around that. What do you do? We just pray. Please God, we pray it never does.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Thank you very much for your presentations.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Thank you.

On the line, Franklin, thank you for staying with us. We all appreciate it.

Meegwetch. Bye-bye.

The meeting is adjourned.