Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Provencher.
Conservatives stand in solidarity with those who have been devastated by the wildfires. We know this is happening across the country, but it is particularly bad in the Prairies right now. We have almost 200 active wildfires, and over half of them are out of control. I want to thank the first responders, all those who are aiding the evacuees, and those who have opened their doors in Brandon, Winnipeg, Saskatoon and communities all across our country. They are stepping up to support our fellow Canadians, who are undergoing probably the worst time in their lives.
Yesterday, in my riding, we did receive some positive news regarding the community of Yellowhead County, part of which I represent. There was an evacuation in the hamlet of Peers, and as of noon today, those families are able to return to their community, so that is some positive news here.
I want to thank the first responders who worked in my riding, including the contractors and the Cat crews who work day and night to protect these small communities from the wildfire threat. I want to particularly thank Albert Bahri from Yellowhead County Protective Services and Wendell Pozniak from Alberta Wildfire Coordination Centre for their professionalism during this crisis.
I also want to give a special shout-out to the team at Canadian National Railway. I am told that if it were not for the work of the Neptune firefighting trains stopping the fire at the train tracks just south of the hamlet of Peers, we would have lost the community, so I thank CN.
I also want to share a message from Yellowhead County mayor, Wade Williams. Wade was telling me that, time and time again, during emergencies, there are those who take advantage of the situation. We have seen across Canada a bad side in this country. We have seen those who will go into communities while the residents are evacuated, and loot. We have seen people steal emergency equipment. We have seen people tamper with hoses and water pumps, and this most recent fire was no exception. This is unacceptable activity, and we need serious penalties for those who would commit these crimes.
It is timely that Mayor Williams would bring this up to me today because, back in 2017, my colleague from Kamloops—Shuswap—Central Rockies brought forward a private member's bill to strengthen criminal penalties for those who would steal or tamper with emergency equipment during emergencies. Shamefully, this private member's bill was voted down by the majority Liberal government at the time.
The government needs to start taking this issue seriously. The one message that the mayor asked me to bring to the House of Commons is that we need stronger penalties for those who would take advantage and risk our communities. He told me that when firefighters discovered that the hoses and pumps on the sprinkler systems were dismantled, they had to go into an active fire situation and risk their lives to get them put back together, so this is putting lives at risk.
I want to talk about something that our federal government needs to start doing. We are not powerless in the face of these wildfires, as much as it may seem so. As I said earlier, in a question back in 2021, former prime minister Trudeau, during the election, went to British Columbia and promised that his government would spend $500 million by the next wildfire season, which would have been 2022, to train 1,000 new firefighters and to buy water bombers and helicopters. The Liberals did not achieve that by the next wildfire-fighting season. It was not even close.
It has been four years now, and I asked a member of the government today how many water bombers and how many helicopters the Liberals have bought since they made that promise in 2021. The member could not answer, because the number is zero. When we talk about lessons learned, we know that the government needs to make investments in preparing our communities and supporting our community with the trained firefighters and equipment that they need to fight these fires.
Last year, in the wake of the devastating Jasper forest fire, we saw the consequences of failure to manage our national forests. Nearly a decade ago, forestry experts like Ken Hodges and Emile Begin wrote to senior public servants and the minister of environment, urging them to fundamentally change their approach to forest management. Their knowledge and expertise were ignored. A century of fire suppression allowed dry deadwood to build up in the park, and the pine beetle epidemic added to this risk.
Now, in this role as emergency management critic, I am grateful to have met with a range of stakeholders, including somebody who shares my name. Dane de Souza is a Métis fire expert from Alberta who has told us about the importance of indigenous land stewardship. One only needs to look at photographs of what Jasper looked like over 100 years ago. It was not this endless swath of lodgepole pine; it was a mixture of forest and grasslands. The indigenous people, Dane was telling me, used to engage in prescribed burns. They found it was a very effective technique to open up new areas of the forest and protect from massive forest fires.
We need to look seriously at implementing some of this indigenous knowledge again in our Parks Canada plan, to ensure we are actively managing our forests in a way that recognizes this knowledge that goes back to time immemorial. Parks Canada needs to reform its forest management practices, because we know mountain communities like Jasper and Banff are still at risk, along with all communities that border our national parks.
As the Conservative shadow minister for emergency management, I get to meet industry and community stakeholders every day who are committed to advancing our nation's mitigation and management capabilities. The federal government, in partnership with all levels of government, needs to do everything it can do to promote Canada's ability to respond to natural disasters, both here at home and abroad.
I talk about some of our champions in the private sector, namely the forestry sector. The forestry sector is at the front lines of battling wildfires. They have a 100-year plan, as one of my colleagues said. They know how to manage forests properly to prevent these forest fires from taking place, but unfortunately they have told me there is some legislation in place under the federal government, the Species at Risk Act, which is a good act and has an important purpose but in some ways can lead to indirect consequences.
When those indirect consequences lead to the prevention of forestry management that can prevent wildfires, it leads to cases where we see these huge wildfires. We can all agree in the House that having no forests is very destructive to wildlife, and not only to wildlife but also to our communities. Canada is a global leader in disaster management practices and technology. We need a federal government that will partner with the private sector to enhance our ability to respond.
I name De Havilland, a well-known aircraft company that is now based outside of Calgary, Alberta. They are a world leader in aerial firefighting, the best in the business, and their water bombers are recognized around the world. Unfortunately, Canada is not buying any of these water bombers, and their orders are now backlogged. They are sending their orders to Europe and other countries instead. We need some of that production to come here, to Canada.
There is Coulson Aviation, out of Port Alberni, British Columbia. They equip both rotary and fixed-wing aircraft with firefighting capabilities, and they are the first company in the world to convert a commercial airliner, a Boeing 737, into a firefighting tanker. This is truly impressive. We have innovative companies at all levels, small and medium-sized enterprises, that hold tremendous promise for putting out fires.
There are folks like Rick Solomon, with Firefox in my area, with his canola oil-based polymer. It is mixed 99% with water and can put out fires more effectively than traditional retardants. I have actually put this product on my bare hands and taken a blowtorch to my hand. It was quite a sight, but I did not feel a thing. It is truly fascinating technology. I spoke to Rick, and unfortunately he has had to move to Montana because of the red tape that has been created in this country. They are selling 15 million home firefighting kits to people in California, where they are actually spraying their homes with this product to protect their houses from wildfire. Sadly, we are not getting these products here in Canada, even though they are being made by Canadians.
We also have companies out of Acheson, Alberta, in my riding, like Wall Genics, which has products that wrap power poles and expand when put in contact with fire, protecting critical infrastructure and saving communities millions in damage. I have seen first-hand the effectiveness of this technology in Jasper. They also have innovative technology like mythril mesh, which is being adopted for construction and can be retrofitted to residences to protect them from wildfire.
Sadly, companies like Wall Genics have once again been victims of the federal government's excessive red tape. Their company treats lumber with copper borate solution, which repels termites. We can buy this treated lumber from the United States, but Canada's Pest Management Regulatory Agency, PMRA, will not let us manufacture it here in Canada. The reason I am bringing this up in the context of this debate is that copper borate-treated lumber is also a very good fire-retardant material. We cannot manufacture it here in Canada, yet we can import it from the United States.
I also want to give a shout-out to organizations like Civil Protection Youth Canada, the Ontario Corps and the Nova Scotia Guard. These are the kinds of innovative public-private partnerships and non-profit groups we need to be supporting as a federal government and as Canadians, because we need more civilians to get involved in taking control of their destiny in terms of firefighter management.
We need a whole-of-government approach with the private sector, government and non-profits in order to defeat these wildfires and protect our communities. I am thankful for the opportunity to speak today.
