Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to continue what I think is an important question. As a proud member of the environment committee, we have undertaken, at the request of the government, a study of the factors that led to the Jasper wildfire that devastated that community, leaving 2,000 people homeless and roughly $1 billion in damages.

What this investigation has revealed are staggering levels of negligence or incompetence. I am not sure what is the better word to use here. When I asked, in question period, how much incompetence it takes to get fired from a Liberal cabinet, I did not get a very clear answer, so I wanted to come back for a little bit more clarity on what, in fact, it does take to get fired from the Liberal cabinet.

At the time, the parliamentary secretary replied, stating that the “government did everything it could to prevent the wildfire.” This is clearly and demonstrably false, but the Liberals simply refuse to take any responsibility, to show any humility for the possibility that maybe they could have done more and that they did not, in fact, do everything they could have done.

The reality is that, starting in 2017, the minister of environment at that time, former minister McKenna, began to receive letters from experts warning that Jasper was a tinderbox waiting to explode and it was not a matter of if; it was just simply a question of when. Those individuals who know the region and know the industry pleaded with the Liberal government of the day and were dismissed. The individuals were told “Everything is in hand. Do not worry. We have it. Jasper is going to be fine. Everything is fine.” It reminds me of what is currently happening under the Liberal government: the gift that in a burning room around us everything is fine.

It was no different in 2017 than it is now. The emails of that time showed discussions that there may have been political perceptions at play regarding whether there would be prescribed burns, which are an important tool that has been used for generations in this country and around the world. However, the environment minister's department, Parks Canada, only cleared a very small amount. As former prime minister Harper said when talking about the future Liberal government's deficits, it was just the teeny-tiniest amount of a percentage of the acres necessary to ensure that the area around Jasper would be protected. Worse, when the disaster struck, trucks were turned away. Twenty trucks and 50 firefighters were turned away. Worse, they realized after they were turned away that Parks Canada, for some reason, had bought the wrong fitting hookups with the wrong threading on the hydrants in that area that did not align with those in the rest of B.C. and Alberta.

What we have seen through this investigation is simply a failure and a refusal to accept any responsibility or acknowledgement and show any humility that maybe the government of the day did not do enough. My hope is that we might see a bit of a shift in that because the evidence is irrefutable, that the Liberal government did not do everything that it could to prevent this fire. I will ask again: When will the Minister of Environment be failed for his either negligence or incompetence?

Branden Leslie

$390,412.00