Mr. Speaker, one of the sad and seemingly inevitable events we witness every winter is an inordinate number of house fires on first nations that take people's lives. Often the lives lost are those of people who have been sacrificed due to the absence of a regulatory regime for fire services and inspections in first nations, which means there are no minimum requirements to be met.
The problems with fire services are only compounded by the persistent, and one could argue permanent, lack of suitable housing available on first nations. For too many of these communities the lack of adequate housing means that overcrowding only complicates the matter. In addition to the many health-related problems that arise from overcrowding, there are also risks related to fire safety. Crowded houses that are not built to be fire safe in the first place are then heated with rudimentary wood stoves, which result in the same sad headlines every winter.
It is said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different response. That is exactly what the government is doing. Either it is satisfied with runaway statistics that make house fires on first nations that much more deadly, or it is fooling itself that the federal response to the problem is adequate. The fact is that fire deaths are ten times more likely to happen on first nations than they are in other communities, which indicates there is a real problem with the government's approach.
When the Conservatives were elected, they liked to say that they would do things differently than the Liberals did, but apparently that does not extend to the 2% funding cap for first nations, which is at the heart of so many challenges on reserves across the country. It is responsible for getting nowhere on chronic problems, like those related to education, housing, and what we are discussing tonight, firefighting services.
The refusal to remove the 2% cap only handcuffs communities. Those that are lucky enough to have a fire crew are forced to respond with equipment that is old and outdated. That is because the money the government does allocate for fighting fires on first nations is a drop in the bucket when one considers how far $26.3 million goes once it is divided among more than 600 communities.
For the sake of an example, consider the situation on the Makwa Sahgaiehcan First Nation in Saskatchewan, where a fire this winter took the lives of two children. While that community does have a working fire truck, what it does not have is proper equipment or a crew with the training to use it. It had an agreement for fire services with the nearby community of Loon Lake, but that agreement had been cut by Loon Lake over non-payment of bills by the first nation, so when the call went out for the emergency on the reserve, the police responded to the 911 call and the fire crew did not. As one can imagine, this created friction between the communities that was totally avoidable, and the government could have avoided the problem altogether if it had chosen to fund first nation firefighting services to the level of need.
It is a matter of making the lives of people on first nations a priority instead of an afterthought. Therefore, I ask, will the government recognize this crisis and work with these communities so they get the protection they need and deserve, or will the government continue to turn a blind eye and continue to put people at risk?