Poilievre promises revamped natural-disaster response in next election platform

Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says his party’s platform in the next election will include a new approach to dealing with natural disasters.

At a news conference in Vancouver, the Leader of the Official Opposition said the federal government needs a better, co-ordinated approach to responding to forest fires, floods and other natural disasters.

“We have resources scattered across the country that need to be co-ordinated and deployed more quickly so that places that have surplus resources can quickly make them available to places that are in desperate need to respond to a natural disaster,” he said.

“Part of our election platform will be to counter these natural disasters with better, centrally co-ordinated responses in co-operation with local and provincial authorities.”

Mr. Poilievre’s remarks were prompted by news of the death of a B.C. firefighter, a member of the B.C. Wildfire Service, who died while battling a fire in southeastern B.C., just outside Revelstoke. Story here.

The Conservative Leader’s comments come as British Columbia has put out a call for national and international help to fight about 350 wildfires that are also blanketing communities in thick smoke.

Canada is in the midst of its worst wildfire season on record, with nearly 95,000 square kilometres burned, almost ten times the average amount burned by this point in the summer over the last 25 years.

Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair said earlier this summer that Canada has sufficient resources to deal with this season’s wildfires, and is open to feedback on that response.

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