National Defence committee  I believe it was directed to me. Thank you very much for that question. I hope I wasn't too ambitious in my desire to listen to the question in French and understand it. I think you're asking me what I would do if we had to really make sure that the Canadian Armed Forces was th

National Defence committee  Sorry.

National Defence committee  Thank you for the question. That's interesting. For that one, I might go back and look at the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre model, which is a really robust method of exchanging resources between the provinces, understanding where each of us is in terms of preparedness

National Defence committee  No, I don't think so. In the Yukon, certainly, we have a bit of a special context, given our geographic isolation from other parts of the country, but, like other parts of the country, we deal with wildland fires and significant flooding events, and we're seeing an increase in th

National Defence committee  Yes, I would say they are reoccurring. I opened up talking a little bit about that robust wildland fire program. That's because these are a natural part of our environment. What we need to do, and what we are doing in the Yukon very aggressively, is pursuing a prevention and mi

National Defence committee  I would echo what Mr. Goodyear is saying. I think investing in the sector is incredibly important—into NGOs but also in those provincial agencies, municipal agencies and federal forces that we may put together. I think that investment is going to be incredibly important. It's not

National Defence committee  That's part of that provincial coordination or that main body of coordination that I think is so important, with the provincial emergency coordination centre or whatever other agency is managing the resources across those various emergencies. That's how we avoid duplication. That

National Defence committee  I'm a little curious about the end of that statement, around providing those supports without the consent of the province. In my experience, it's really critical that all levels are working closely together. I don't see, in the Yukon at least, indigenous or first nation communiti

National Defence committee  I heard it, but I will answer in English. I believe you're asking whether it would be a welcome addition to our resources to have an equipped team of reservists to come and support us in more remote regions like the Yukon. I think the short answer is yes. I definitely think ther

National Defence committee  We have several standing response structures in the Yukon. We have a very mature and well-developed wildland fire program. We benefit in that program from a very robust resource exchange program across the country. We have certain levels of preparedness that we are used to and pl

National Defence committee  Thank you very much. My name is Damien Burns, and I am the assistant deputy minister of protective services with the Government of Yukon. To open today, I would just like to say that every summer across western North America and across the world, wildfires threaten communitie