Announcement of financial assistance to British Columbia, under the Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements, for the 2003 forest fires

Remarks by
the Honourable Stockwell Day
Minister of Public Safety

Kelowna, British Columbia
July 10, 2007
As delivered

Thank you. It's great to be here. I'd like to thank all those who have been involved in this event. I also see that my colleague Member of Parliament Colin Mayes is here. Certainly, Colin, from living in the Shuswap, you know about the challenges forest fires create.

Ladies and gentlemen, we all have vivid memories of the forest fires in 2003. And probably the most vivid memories are those shared by our firefighters themselves and we continue to give them thanks and credit for what they did then and what they do everyday.

We all have the pictures in our minds: fires burning in the hills, individuals whose homes were burning and firefighters who were fighting to save other people's homes and then being informed theirs were burning down.

One of the most dramatic memories for me was one afternoon in Penticton. I was standing on the beach with my grandkids. They were of course overwhelmed by the sight of these fires and I was trying to explain to them everything that was happening.

At that particular moment, it just seemed like the entire place was burning down. Smoke was thick in the air. Water bombers were going overhead. You could see firefighters up in the hills. And the army had been called in. On the left hand side from where we were standing, somebody had drowned. The RCMP officers were trying to find the person who had disappeared off of their little inflatable boat less than an hour before.

It was shocking to see all of that happening - the fire bombers, the firefighters, the armed forces and the RCMP. And as overwhelming as it was for us who were trying to take this all in, the amazing thing was that each of those services were working in a coordinated way, doing the things they'd been called upon to do, that they'd been trained to do.

Each of those professions, whether it's policing, emergency services, firefighting or the military, are comprised of men and women who train all their lives for things they hope will never happen. And yet, right in that particular moment, all of them were happening at once. I was reminded and I explained to my grandkids that it's important to remember that these men and women devote themselves to protecting us at times like this.

Those are the types of memories that each of you share, special incidents that happened, things that we'll never forget. Some of the lessons we learned have been built into the new Emergency Management Act which just received Royal Assent in Parliament. It will help us to coordinate at even greater levels and possibly even faster than before.

One of the areas of coordination that is so important is the flow of funds to cover the damage and to help people recover. And there is a program that's in place between the federal government and the provincial governments - the Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements. Basically, when the incident is over and the response and recovery costs are too much for the province to reasonably cover, the Government of Canada can assist with funding. We wait for the final assessments to come in. This is done in stages, because the bills keep coming in of course. We want to be there to assist people whose lives have been affected and the municipalities who have been impacted. That's the purpose of the program.

In this particular case, this is the third payment that the federal government is making to help with the 2003 forest fires.

And so, I'm pleased to present a cheque here for $4 million and to show the Government of Canada's continued support to the province of British Columbia.