As communities hit by wildfire ‘pick through the rubble,’ Jagmeet Singh calls on feds to do more on climate change

Story by The Canadian Press • Yesterday 

On his tour of K’atl’odeeche First Nation, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh was struck by one image: a ceramic white-and-blue teapot sitting in the ashes of what was once a home. The melted-metal foundations of the house stood like the dead trees that now surround the community, posing a danger to residents without their root structures intact.

“Families are still picking through the rubble to see if they can recover anything,” he told Canada's National Observer, adding cleanup and clearing is still needed for the damaged infrastructure and burnt-black trees.

To drive home the seriousness of the climate crisis, Singh travelled to the Northwest Territories on Tuesday to visit two communities on the front lines. The Dene community of K’atl’odeeche First Nation and the town of Hay River have been battered by climate-related emergencies for two years running. In 2022, the twin communities fled from historic floods that caused $174 million in damages to homes, businesses and infrastructure.

Then, in 2023, they were hammered by the other side of the climate seesaw with record-high temperatures, drought and a wildfire that devastated K’atl’odeeche First Nation.

On Tuesday, while fielding questions about an imminent Liberal cabinet shuffle, the NDP leader stood on the riverbed of the Hay River. He pointed to the climate crisis as the leading cause of extreme weather.

“The [Hay River] is at a record low level,” Singh said at the media availability. “This is serious: This is exactly what happens when extreme weather becomes a norm.”

Greenhouse gases trap heat around the planet like a warm blanket. The more greenhouse gases we release into the atmosphere, the thicker that blanket gets, the hotter the planet grows and the more the climate changes. Burning fossil fuels is one of the main ways humans add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and drive climate change, which leads to hotter temperatures and creates conditions that help spark wildfires. Climate change also makes weather patterns more unpredictable, leading to an increase in extreme weather events.

On May 14, after a wildfire forced the K’atl’odeeche First Nation to evacuate to Hay River, the two communities were brought together by the unfolding emergency. By 11 o’clock that night, the fire jumped the river and an evacuation order was called for the entire township of Hay River, including for the K’atl’odeeche, who had to evacuate twice in one day.

K’atl’odeeche community members returned to find their band office burned to the ground and their community damaged. The community was already dealing with a housing crisis, which has now been exacerbated because of the wildfire, Singh said. 

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Singh is calling on the government to increase funds for housing and strategies to adapt to and minimize the effects of climate change, requests he heard directly from K’atl’odeeche leadership. For example, he wants the federal government to fund additional training and better equipment to fight climate emergencies, including an emergency stockpile of wildfire fighting equipment, according to an NDP press release.

He also called for more initial attack crews to extinguish fires before they spread and an increase to the firefighter tax credit to give volunteer firefighters financial help.

Singh slammed both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government for moving too slowly on climate action and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievere for complete inaction.

“Justin Trudeau likes to make climate announcements for show — but his government’s record just doesn’t stand up,” Singh said in a press release.

“And Pierre Poilievre would let Big Oil do whatever they wanted and call it climate action — stacking the deck even further for rich oil CEOs and failing to prevent climate disasters while ignoring the devastating costs to Canadians.”

Singh also referred to elements of his party’s supply-and-confidence agreement, which advocated for giving labour organizations a seat at the table in developing the federal government’s sustainable jobs plan as well as ending public financing for fossil fuel companies.

On Monday, the federal government unveiled new guidelines to restrict fossil fuel subsidies, albeit with numerous exceptions. Singh slammed the Liberals for “moving very slowly” to fulfil a long-standing promise to end public fossil fuel financing and introducing a framework that included exceptions rather than “just cancelling the subsidies” outright.

—With files from Tori Fitzpatrick

Matteo Cimellaro, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Canada's National Observer