(Quebec) François Legault recognizes that Quebec will have to change its ways of doing things to better adapt to climate change, in particular by investing more in protection against forest fires. The opposition urges him to do more.
“There are questions to be asked. Yes, we can say that climate change leads to a need to invest in what is called adaptation to climate change. Yes, these are things we are currently looking at,” said the Premier during a press briefing in Sept-Îles.
Faced with this “underlying trend”, he believes that the fleet of old tanker planes in Quebec – some aircraft date from “40 or 50 years” – will have to be modernized and perhaps upgraded. The number of pilots and mechanics could also increase in the next few years. “We’re going to have to ask questions to invest more,” he said.
It also opens the door to digging trenches to protect certain vulnerable towns permanently. “I was saying earlier, we are digging trenches around Chibougamau. You will have to ask yourself this kind of question. How do we protect our imploring municipalities in Quebec. There are questions to be asked,” he said.
This is not the first time that the Prime Minister has been caught up on the issue of acclimatization to climate change. François Legault rejected during the election campaign the request of cities demanding the establishment of a “green pact” of 2 billion per year to help them adapt to climate change. A repeated request during the recent flooding in Baie-Saint-Paul.
Forest fires hold the attention of the National Assembly. The elected representatives of the opposition testified Tuesday to their solidarity with the Quebecers evacuated because of the magnitude of the situation. They also urged the Legault government to give itself the means to adapt Quebec to climate change, especially forests.
“Our ability to respond to this situation is clearly insufficient. And adapting to climate change also means anticipating what is happening right now,” said Parti Québécois leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon.
“People are losing their homes, their lives are in danger, it’s very serious. So that also means questions about forest management, the personnel available, the nature of the equipment. There really is a whole review to be done in the light of what we see, ”he said.
The interim leader of the Quebec Liberal Party made similar comments: “I think we need to revisit our entire program to fight climate change, but also to fight forest fires. Same thing we said to ourselves, remember when there were floods, we have to review our program,” said Marc Tanguay.
Do we have enough equipment? Do we have enough staff? Are we deploying the forest firefighting strategy in the most optimal way?
Marc Tanguay, interim leader of the PLQ
QS calls for emergency fund
For its part, Québec solidaire reiterated its proposal to create an emergency climate fund of 500 million per year. “It could actually be used to give more resources to SOPFEU, but it could also be used for prevention,” said co-spokesperson Manon Massé.
“Forest management today is not necessarily helpful when disasters like this occur. I think that in Quebec, we have the knowledge. Science knows how to manage forests to mitigate an outbreak. We are talking, for example, of natural solutions such as wetlands, such as peat bogs which play a role in water retention”, illustrated Ms.me Mass.