Thank you.

My name is Amy Cardinal Christianson. I live in Treaty 6, Rocky Mountain House, Alberta. I'm a member of the Métis Nation from the Cardinal and Laboucane families of Treaty 6 and Treaty 8. My family's band, Peeaysis Band, was disenfranchised by the Canadian government.

My family used to travel and trade through Jasper, but I do not have indigenous rights or territory in the area and fully support the indigenous rights holders there.

I come to this testimony from a national perspective through my past role as a research scientist with the Canadian forest service for 15 years, my two years spent as an indigenous fire specialist with Parks Canada and my current role with Indigenous Leadership Initiative.

I first want to send my thoughts of compassion and solidarity to my colleagues with Parks Canada, who not only had to endure the fire event that happened there and the recovery they are currently undertaking but also hearings like this, where people take incredibly complex situations that are generations in the making and try to finger-point. I know how hard you were all working leading up to the fire. I know what you endured during the fires, and I fully support your moving forward.

As the previous indigenous witnesses stated, the fire problem in Jasper National Park started in 1907, when the national park was established and indigenous people were forcibly removed. These people had distinct kinship ties to the cultural landscapes there, including fire stewardship practices like frequently burning valley bottoms to achieve diversity on the landscape in coordination with our important teacher, lightning. Now when people travel to national parks like Jasper, they observe a carpet of dark green trees as far as the eye can see and think it is beautiful and natural; it is not. It is an unhealthy landscape that is suffering. It is not adaptive to human-caused climate change, which is further increasing the fire problem.

Our elders refer to this as a “hungry forest”, because you have to go so far to encounter any forms of diversity. These homogenous forests, where the trees are all around the same age and same species type, become prone to disturbances like insects and out-of-control fires, as many witnesses have stated, but I want to make it clear that fire is not a disturbance on the landscape although we treat it as such. Rather, it has been the removal of fire from fire-dependent forests in Canada that has been the larger disturbance and has caused what we're seeing today.

When I woke up the day after Jasper burned, I had multiple messages from indigenous people who are rights holders in that area saying that this would never have happened if they had been allowed to continue their relationship with fire in the lands and valleys of Jasper.

I also want to point out that what happened in Jasper is not unique. Indigenous communities all across Canada are repeatedly disproportionately impacted by wildfire. In the last two years, 149 indigenous communities have experienced wildfire evacuations. I'll repeat that. One hundred forty-nine indigenous communities were evacuated from wildfire in the last two years, yet indigenous nations and people are continually excluded from decision-making around fire management.

Wildfire evacuations are expensive. We estimated that, in the last 42 years, wildfire evacuations have cost the Canadian economy $4.6 billion. This doesn't even include the cost of fighting the fires, just of moving people. We've spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the years in Canada on bringing in international firefighters who don't know our landscape. We're spending hundreds of millions on firefighting planes that need to be upgraded or replaced.

People are starting to push for a federal firefighting force, but more bureaucracy with people further removed from local knowledge is not the answer.

We already have a movement that could function as a net nationwide firefighting force in Canada that's just waiting to be activated, indigenous guardians. More than 200 first nation, year-round guardian programs already help manage lands and waters across the country. Some are helping respond to fires. When fire threatened Fort Good Hope, Northwest Territories, this June, the guardians were prepared. They helped evacuate community members, and thanks to training from Yukon First Nations Wildfire, they joined the fire line and helped save the town.

By expanding existing guardian programs and investing in new fire guardian programs, we can create a fleet of locally knowledgeable professionals ready to respond to fire and reduce risk. Indigenous fire guardians will work year-round on fire. They will be able to put fire on the land in spring and fall, a technique proven to reduce fire risk during hot, dry summers. They will work on emergency management, planning, education, preparedness and fire prevention and on response and on recovery after fires happen.

Vegetation also grows back, and they will be there to make sure that fire mitigation work is maintained. They will work to build healthy landscapes that will also protect our vital watersheds. Not only does this increase the ability to navigate this new area of fire, but it also creates jobs. Engaging more guardians in fighting wildfire is an investment that pays off.

I've just returned from Australia where their indigenous fire rangers are making huge positive impacts. It will enable indigenous nations in Canada to meet the challenge of supercharged fire with greater capacity and indigenous and local knowledge.

We will always have fire, but we can change our relationship with it. Indigenous leadership is the future of fire.