Hon. Jean-Guy Dagenais: Every year, during the July 14 festivities in France, I am always impressed to see the thousands of firefighters in uniform marching in the Champs-Élysées parade. France has more than 252,000 firefighters, including 197,000 volunteer firefighters, who the country can call upon in the case of wildfires or other natural disasters. Many of these volunteers are retired members of the military.

Yesterday, I was shocked to see that the Prime Minister seemed unable to tell us what was going to be done to get the wildfires under control. We are talking about 2,200 wildfires so far this year, and it is not even summer yet. Unfortunately, wildfires, flooding and tornadoes all seem to be on the agenda for the coming years.

Will Canada stand idly by or will it do like France and set up a mobile volunteer fire brigade to intervene when major disasters strike? Believe me, we are going to need it.