The question you ask is a very troubling one. The statistical analysis that is required to provide any sort of strength, any business case that could go forward for any sort of infrastructure improvements or fire service improvements in first nations does not exist right now.
The work that is being done to create the indigenous fire marshal office through the efforts of the Aboriginal Firefighters Association of Canada and Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada is going to bring that ability to create a national database collection, a national incident reporting system. Those are all pieces of the puzzle that are part and parcel, and very important.
The only statistic I can provide you right now is that the provinces and the fire marshals' offices do keep track of first nations fatalities. Thankfully, the Ontario fire marshal's office released that data this past January. In the past 24 months, as my chief had mentioned, we've lost 18 first nations people in Ontario. We've lost 56 first nations people in Ontario in the last 10 years.
Two years ago, I was here in Ottawa on a very similar panel and having a very similar discussion. I told them at that time, “We need to start moving forward, start collecting data. We need to start seeing what the problem is so that we can analyze it and prioritize.” I said, “We're going to lose more of our people, but we need to start doing this.” Here we are, 18 first nations fire deaths later, and we're really not very much further ahead than we were two years ago.
There is a good work that's happening, but it's happening at a pace that is going to result in a lot more first nations fire deaths.