Prime Minister Justin Trudeau discussed emergency preparedness while stopping in B.C.’s Interior on Friday.
In West Kelowna, flanked by local first responders and politicians, Trudeau said he talked “about the challenges posed by extreme weather events that come from climate change, whether it’s wildfires or floods or heat waves or cold snaps that are having an impact on our growers.
“We know that we need to be more prepared, more coordinated and focused on everything that we’re doing to keep families, individuals, communities and our country safe.”
A few minutes after his opening announcement to the media, Trudeau announced that there needs to be “better coordination across the board” along with tax credits regarding first responders.
“We know from the forecasts that in western and northern Canada … it is likely to be a very bad forest fire season,” he said.
“Our firefighters are extraordinary heroes who step up with courage and determination to support their neighbours, to save lives and we need to make sure that we are doing everything we can to be there for them.”
Trudeau says the federal government has doubled the volunteer firefighter tax credit, will spend $800,000 on training 1,000 more wildland firefighters across Canada and $175 million for emergency response and preparedness in Indigenous communities.
“We’re in a situation right now where people are worried,” he said.
“People are worried what the summer might bring, people are worried what the future might hold for themselves, for the next generations.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty in the world and climate change is a big part of it. We need to continue to step up in our fight against climate change so that we can minimize the extreme weather impacts, whether it’s storms or floods or wildfires or any range of impacts that we’re increasingly seeing.”
— This story will be updated.
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