Jagmeet Singh urges more federal support for NWT amid fires

The leader of Canada’s New Democrats has reiterated a call for more federal support to the NWT as the territory grapples with an unprecedented wildfire season.

“My thoughts are with the families of Hay River and everywhere in the Northwest Territories,” Jagmeet Singh was quoted as saying in an NDP press release.

“Climate disasters are happening all over the country and people are losing everything they value the most.

“While we welcome and thank the Canadian Forces coming to help, the federal government must act to ensure people are getting all the support they need to get through this difficult time.”

Singh said the federal government needs to take “meaningful action” to address climate change and provide more support for frontline workers, residents and communities dealing with its impacts.

Singh last month called on Ottawa to increase funding for housing and climate disaster mitigation, including investing in resources to fight wildfires. At the time he toured Kátł’odeeche First Nation, where a wildfire in May had damaged several homes and burned down the band office.

The First Nation and Hay River were again ordered to evacuate over the weekend due to an approaching wildfire, along with Fort Smith, Enterprise and Jean Marie River.

Officials have said a wildfire that burned through Enterprise on Sunday caused significant structure damage in the community as well as parts of Paradise Gardens, a community between Enterprise and Hay River. A wildfire also damaged the fibre line providing communications services to the South Slave.

A total of eight communities, more than 20 percent of the territory’s population, have been affected by wildfire evacuations in the NWT this year.

Shane Thompson, the territory’s environment and community affairs minister, has said this year’s wildfire season will cost more than the $56.1 million the territory spent in 2014 during the NWT’s infamous “summer of smoke.”

He said on Monday the territory did not need to call a state of emergency as it had the “necessary relationships” to get the resources it needs to address the wildfire situation.

“All it has been is a phone call and they’ve been able to do it,” he said.

Firefighters from Yukon, Alberta, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Alaska and South Africa have helped with fire fighting efforts in the territory. More than 100 soldiers from the Canadian Armed Forces arrived in the NWT on Monday night to also assist with wildfire efforts.

A total of 268 wildfires have burned more than 2.1 million hectares in the territory this year so far, 236 of which are still actively burning.

Several of those wildfires have destroyed cabins, homes and other buildings.

That includes more than a dozen buildings in Kátł’odeeche First Nation, 19 structures in and near Behchokǫ̀, and an unconfirmed number of cabins outside Tulita. A home in Sambaa K’e was also destroyed by an ignition operation gone wrong, which crews had attempted in an effort to protect the community from an oncoming wildfire.