Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to stand and acknowledge the fire situation in this country. As this is the first time I am on my feet to give a speech in the House, I want to thank the good people of Peace River—Westlock in northern Alberta, the honey capital of Canada, the promised land, as I like to call it, for re-electing me for the fourth time and giving me a mandate in this place.

In our riding, we have forestry, farming and the oil patch, and all of that happens out in the boreal forest in northern Alberta, so the topic that we are discussing tonight is near and dear to my heart. Forest management is a thing that I have had many talks with many people about over the last number of years.

Over 4,000 people are evacuated from their homes in Alberta at the moment. I recognize that our emergency debate tonight is about the wildfires in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and I hope it was merely an oversight that Alberta was not included, given the fact that Alberta feels that it is taken for granted regularly. Once again we see that perhaps Alberta was overlooked tonight. Nonetheless, there are thousands of people displaced from their homes at the moment.

Perhaps the wildfire situation in Alberta is not mentioned because Albertans are as resilient as they are. I want to thank everybody who has stepped up across Alberta to help in this time. I know that there are evacuee registration centres across northern Alberta. When I visit these places, I am often surprised to hear that although we hear in the news that thousands of people are evacuated, the evacuation centres are only hosting hundreds of people. That is because Albertans step up in these times of need.

I have a number of stories of folks that have just reached out on Facebook. People from around Barrhead noted on Facebook that if folks needed a place to host their horses or their dogs, or to park their holiday trailer, their yard was an open place to do that and they had horse facilities available.

Eryk, Kim, Shawna and Theresah, on Facebook, offered residents of Swan Hills a place to stay and to park their trailer. Amy offered kennel spots for dogs and horses, 12 minutes outside Barrhead. People have thanked the residents and business owners in Whitecourt for helping evacuate the people in Swan Hills. Food vendors have stepped up and offered free food to folks who have been evacuated. Hotels have been hosting pets. They have supported many of the families who are struggling, particularly in the community of Whitecourt.

We noted that this was a repeated comment on Facebook about how the business community had really stepped up, and people were very proud of the community of Whitecourt. There is an organization called Mama Gray's Kitchen in Whitecourt, which was were feeding people out of the back of a pickup truck. They were basically tailgating downtown for the Swan Hills residents. They were giving out free taco bags, watermelon, ice cream cones and soft drinks.

A lady in Barrhead stopped in at Subway, and when she heard that the folks in front of her were from Swan Hills and were evacuees, she paid for their lunch. The people whose lunch was paid for recognized that on Facebook. Becki Pound was recognized on Facebook for helping Josee Bernier and her family, who had evacuated from Swan Hills. The Pembina West Co-op was donating meals to the Swan Hills evacuation centre in Whitecourt.

I would also note that church communities have been taking on dinner duties at the evacuation centres. The church communities have stepped up to volunteer to sponsor one of the meals each day at the evacuation centres. I recognize the church communities across the riding that have stepped up in this way.

Businesses have been out helping the Dene Tha’ First Nation evacuees from Chateh. Loon River First Nation was providing meals, accommodations and fuel to anybody coming by who needed those things.

Buckles & Blues in Whitecourt was giving a 20% discount on food and clothing for people who were having to buy new clothes because they were evacuated without being able to collect their clothes from their house. Global Pet Foods in Whitecourt was donating thousands of dollars to the food bank for the evacuees, and it is offering a 15% discount for any evacuees buying pet food and kitty litter. These are a number of the stories of how Albertans have stepped forward and reached out to help those being evacuated.

Now, this is not a new story. The reason we are here tonight is to debate the emergencies that the wildfires have created. When we listen to the Liberals, we hear that they do not want to talk about solutions to the wildfires; they want to talk about their perceived cause of the wildfires, and they keep mentioning that it is climate change that is causing them. I grant the premise that climate change is a contributing factor to all of the fires, but what we repeatedly hear from forest management folks is that it is the fuel load. It is the amount of old-growth forest in Canada. We have done an incredible job for over 100 years in managing our forest fires.

I remember a story that my grandfather told me. He came to Canada when he was 21 years old. He was in northern B.C. when there was a forest fire happening, and people were conscripted. He said that several times when he was in town on Main Street running errands, he was conscripted to go fight forest fires. That was in the 1950s.

Back then, this country believed in developing our resources. People believed that the trees were there to be harvested. This had been a thing throughout all of Canada's history. When the first people came from Europe to Canada, they noted the trees and harvested them to build ships, which was one of the first reasons that people came to Canada, or to “New Found Land”, as they called it. We saw that extended for a very long time. Managing the forest to promote the production of the trees and to limit forest fires to ensure that we could harvest those trees was the program of Canada for a very long time.

We have seen in recent generations that the program for Canadian forests has changed slightly. The forestry industry complains a lot about the fact that its 100-year plans are being put in jeopardy because of government programs or government policy dictated, too often, from on high, and I just want to mention a few of those things. One is the softwood lumber tariffs, which have caused instability in our ability to market our softwood lumber, and that has caused somewhat of a reduction in the allowable cut or the ability to cut. When sawmills do not make money and when they go out of business, trees no longer get harvested, which ends up resulting in a larger old-growth forest with a higher fuel load.

The Species at Risk Act came in, sterilized the landscape of human activity, and forced all industry out of particular areas, with no consideration for forest management at all. The Species at Risk Act is a noble cause to bring back species that are at risk, but forest management does not get done. We also have the 30 by 30 and our national parks program. All of these policies get laid over top of each other.

There are no solutions; there are only trade-offs, and that is the reality of life. When we layer on all of these policies and policy changes over time, when forestry companies are unable to enact their 100-year plans, and watch the forest grow old and the fuel load grow higher, they will say, yes, climate change is a real thing, but it is the fuel load that is there and they just know it is a matter of time before that forest burns.

If we do not harvest the trees, if we do not take the fuel load out of there, it is only a matter of time before the forest will burn, which has not been recognized by the Liberal government, and so here we are once again in a fire season.

Arnold Viersen

$592,855.00