Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Our news these days is full of images and descriptions of natural disasters around the world: earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons, hurricanes, tornadoes. Many times we sit and watch the news and say we sympathize but thank God that’s not here. Not to be predicting the negative today, I want to say that we do have disaster on our doorstep.
It’s impossible to think that our neighbour, the province of Alberta, could have almost virtually lost the infrastructure of a town of 7,000, thankfully with no loss of life or injury to this point. Alberta is burning. There are 115 fires in northern Alberta right now, 36 out of control and a summer forecast for record heat and dry conditions. These predictions, these forecasts affect our territory and need us as legislators to pause and think what we’re going to do and how we’re going to address this potential for fire hazard this year.
If a province with the communications system, infrastructure, technology and financial resources as that of our neighbours in Alberta, as I said, have almost lost a community the size of Slave Lake to fire, how will we fare if we are subjected to similar circumstances this summer?
I’d like to later today ask the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources if we have sufficiently budgeted for our fire season. What contingencies do we have? What reciprocal agreements do we have with other jurisdictions to assist us if such an emergency occurs? What kind of emergency preparedness do we have in our communities at this time? What’s the status of our community firebreaks? Just in general, what has our government done to prepare itself in the eventuality that these conditions, these climatic conditions which are out of our control, should cause disaster in this territory as well this summer?
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
