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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 206

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 5, 2023 11:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 206 - Jun/5/23
Ms. Kristina Michaud (Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, BQ)
  • Jun/5/23 10:28:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I was reading in Le Devoir earlier that a “jewel of the Innu nation”, an outfitting camp owned by the Innu government of Uashat-Maliotenam near Sept-Îles on the north shore, was destroyed by fire. I also read that 80% of indigenous communities in Canada live in forested areas and are among the first victims of this growing phenomenon. My colleague made the connection between climate change and global warming. I would like him to talk more about what we must do. What is our responsibility as elected members to protect these communities?
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Context: House Hansard - 206 - Jun/5/23
Ms. Viviane Lapointe
  • Jun/5/23 10:55:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we know that the situation today has been caused greatly by global warming, which creates higher temperatures and more dry fuel available to burn, which results in more persistent hot and dry weather. That leads to fires that intensify and spread much faster. That is why it is our important that our plans and our ability to manage these situations need to evolve. We have seen the evacuations of tens of thousands of Canadians across the country. We need to keep evolving our plans. As our expertise grows, so does that of the people who are responding, as well as the policymakers who are supporting them in the work that they do.
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Context: House Hansard - 206 - Jun/6/23
Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)
  • Jun/6/23 12:00:18 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate my two minutes to speak to this emergency debate on the wildfires, and I appreciate all of my colleagues here tonight. We are taking up a debate that operates at two levels. We have spent most of this debate on the first level, and that is appropriate. That first level is the immediate, the now. It is what we have just gone through, which is not over yet. As my hon. colleague from South Shore—St. Margarets pointed out, the idea of forest fires raging in areas of Nova Scotia, my home province, where the month of May is not known to be hot and dry but rather cold, miserable and very rainy, is so unknown to a Nova Scotian that it is rather chilling. As my hon. colleague from South Shore—St. Margarets said earlier tonight, the fire is deep, several feet underground still. That is the immediate. That is the now. That is knowing that over the last 10 years in this country, the month of May has had an average area burnt of 150,000 hectares. The last 10 years have already been affected by global warming, so if we were to go back 100 years, it would have been less. This month, May 2023, saw in excess of two million hectares burnt. That is the immediate. That is the now. That is the courage of the firefighters we salute. That is the patience and forbearance of people who leave their homes without question, get to safety and do it in an orderly fashion. However, I think we also know that right now we are at the very edge of being too late on the larger question of the climate emergency. This place voted that we were in a climate emergency on June 18, 2019. That same year, Greta Thunberg used fire as the analogy that should have caused our generation and our leaders to do what was required to avoid getting to this point. As she said, “Our house is on fire.... I want you to act as if our house is on fire. Because it is.”
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