Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today in support of budget 2025. We are building Canada strong. This is a plan that would protect our communities, empower Canadians with better careers and make life more affordable. We are creating an economy by Canadians for Canadians.
Our government is cutting spending, building more and honouring our commitments, because that is how we are investing in Canada's future. Our government is focused on strengthening Canada's economic resilience. Today, however, I want to talk about a different kind of resilience, one that keeps our communities safe and ready to take on the challenges of a changing world.
As we all know, the nature of emergencies is changing. Extreme weather events are more frequent and more severe. Our government recognizes that our work does not stop once the flames are out or the flood waters recede. Emergency management continues long after any disaster occurs. It also begins long before any disaster happens, with smart planning and investments.
Emergency management and community resilience are a priority for this government. That is why budget 2025 contains several proposals that will further enhance our country's emergency preparedness and response.
The national public alerting system saves lives. It warns the public about natural disasters, which saves precious time and plays a key role. It also warns about child abductions through Amber alerts and helps keep children safe.
The budget proposes an investment of over $55.4 million over four years, $13.4 million a year on a continual basis, to renew the national public alerting system. This investment ensures that this critical tool remains active in keeping Canadians safe.
An updated alert system responds to recommendations from the Mass Casualty Commission, which examined the 2020 Nova Scotia mass shooting. It recommended transformative change to better prevent and respond to critical incidents and mass casualty events in the future, to help make Canadian communities safer. The renewal of the national public alerting system will ensure Canadians continue to receive amber alerts and warnings of imminent natural disasters, extreme weather events and security threats so they can take action to protect themselves and their communities.
The year is drawing to a close. The 2025 wildfire season has been the second-worst in Canadian history. One thing has become clear: The impacts of wildfires are growing and we need to be better prepared for them. Our government responded to 17 requests for assistance throughout this wildfire season. That is a significant number.
Although the active season is over, some regions are still fighting forest fires.
Here are some numbers. There were more than 6,000 wildfires in nearly every province and territory, impacting communities across the country and burning over 8.3 million hectares. Since April, the heightened risk and impacts have forced evacuations of more than 85,000 people, including over 45,000 people from 73 first nations communities.
These numbers represent the lived experience of thousands of people, including families forced to leave their home, communities rallying together and responders working tirelessly to protect lives and property. I want to express my deep appreciation and gratitude to the first responders, volunteers and local leaders who work tirelessly and demonstrate immense bravery to help keep Canadians safe.
While provinces and territories manage on-the-ground firefighting, the increasing scale and frequency of wildfires have made this a national issue that deserves a national response. To boost Canada's aerial firefighting capacity, budget 2025 will provide $257.6 million to lease water bombers. This will make the federal government an even stronger partner in emergency response and builds on our other accomplishments to date.
One of our pivotal accomplishments has been the modernization of our financial assistance mechanisms. We recognize that recovery costs from large-scale disasters are a substantial burden on provinces and territories, and that is why we revamped the disaster financial assistance arrangements.
In April, we launched a modernized program designed not only to accelerate and improve funding, but also to encourage proactive risk-reduction efforts across all levels of government to build back better.
Collaboration has been a cornerstone of our success. Through the humanitarian workforce program, we have funded and built capacity within non-governmental organizations like the Canadian Red Cross, which enables them to deploy resources quickly in response to large-scale emergencies. This civilian response capacity reduces the strain on the Canadian Armed Forces and allows for more tailored community-based responses.
I am particularly excited that budget 2025 creates a youth climate corps that will provide paid skills training for young Canadians. They will be trained to quickly respond to climate emergencies, support recovery and strengthen resilience in communities across the country. This initiative will support reducing youth unemployment, will increase innovation and will strengthen adaptation and mitigation projects.
With the investments we are making in budget 2025, we will be able to build further on these efforts to make a real difference in Canadians' lives. When a wildfire rages through a town, the cost is not just the price of the fire trucks and the water bombers. It is the cost of rebuilding homes and businesses that took generations to build. It is the psychological toll on families that lose their cherished memories and their sense of security. It is the billions in insured and uninsured damages that put immense strain on our economy and our social safety net.
Every dollar we choose not to spend today on climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation and infrastructure resilience will result in exponential recovery costs tomorrow. This is not a matter of political ideology; it is a matter of financial responsibility and public safety.
The path ahead requires bold action and investment, yes, but let us be clear that it is an investment in the safety of our children to strengthen our economy and the enduring success of our country.
I know many of my hon. colleagues across the House, from all parties, have discussed the impact of climate change in their communities. In fact, they have called on the government to step up capacity and play a larger role in emergency management. With this budget, that is exactly what we are doing. Budget 2025 is our plan to take control and build the future we want for ourselves, as a people and as a country. It is our plan to build Canada strong.