Fractured: Tales of the Canadian Post-Apocalypse(20)
The Speaker:
Order. I would remind the hon. members to address the chair and not to speak directly to their colleagues.
Mr. Vasily Sénéchal:
Madam Speaker, with all due respect, the member opposite has no better idea of what’s good for her riding than any of us do, since, like all of us, she can’t see it, she can’t visit it, she doesn’t know what is happening in it, nobody can even agree on its boundaries since they’re all under several metres of pulsing sludge. No doubt everybody appreciated that photo op the member did in a hazmat suit standing by the big Do Not Enter sign. That looked very good, very heroic. But is that really research? There hasn’t been a flyover in at least two months, at least not since March when we lost radio contact with seven jets, only five of which, I am sorry to remind you, Madam Speaker, returned home. I don’t doubt that what the member saw on that flyover was very disturbing, but disturbing images glimpsed through the window of an airplane 10 weeks ago is not enough to base a policy on. If we wish to make informed decisions about what is to be done in the black zone, we need more than dramatic pictures. There needs to be discussion, both here on the floor and with expert committees set up for the purpose. I will not support a law whose only possible outcome is the needless death of more of our armed forces personnel and first responders.
Some Hon. Members:
Oh, oh!
The Speaker:
Order, please. There are seven minutes left for questions and I need to be able to hear the members speak.
Hon. Nurul Huda Abidi:
Madam Speaker, I believe it is an insult to our military and to our first responders to restrict them from doing what they are trained to do. Frankly I am surprised that the other parties would rather talk on the phone with professors than send help to the black zone.
Some Hon. Members:
Oh, oh!
The Speaker:
Order, I must insist. The hon. member from Newmarket— Aurora—King has the floor.
Hon. Nurul Huda Abidi:
I have spoken to the Alberta teams and, Madam Speaker, they are champing at the bit, they want to go help. They don’t want us to be sitting around the House talking any more than we do. I received a letter from Diego Cordon, the chief of police in Red Deer, and we had a great conversation on the phone. There isn’t enough time left for me to read his letter to you, but I just want you to know that brave people like him are eager to go and help, and I am frustrated that the parties opposite are slowing that process down.
STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS
Displaced Persons
Ms. Kisi Armah-Cohen (Edmonton—Holyrood, GP): Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate the generous and good-hearted members of my riding for volunteering their time and money, and even in some cases opening their homes, to the displaced populations of Lac La Biche, Cold Lake, Meadow Lake, Bonnyville, and surrounding areas.
My colleagues elsewhere in Alberta and Saskatchewan, particularly the members from Edmonton—Strathcona and Wetaskiwin who have worked so tirelessly on the Black Flood Emergency Committee, have been nothing less than champions, setting up dozens of reception centres across southern Alberta, and organizing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of donations from well-wishers across Canada. The member from Wetaskiwin and I don’t agree on very much politically, but credit where credit is due, he has the best interests of displaced Canadians at heart, as we all do I’m sure.
However, Madam Speaker, there is still much work to be done. Housing and feeding nearly 20,000 people who have been evacuated from their homes is no small task, especially when the families in my own riding are feeling their own worry, feeling their own stress about the advancing churn.
I know that these troubles may feel very far away to my colleagues in Eastern Canada, and of course unlike other natural disasters, this one cannot be photographed, which makes it hard to even imagine. But I would like everyone in this House to understand, Madam Speaker, that this is a Canadian problem, not an Alberta problem, not a Saskatchewan problem. The zone has already crossed one provincial boundary and is fast approaching a territorial boundary: natural disasters do not care where we draw lines on the map, and in a crisis like this, neither should we.
Black Zone Containment
Ms. Grace Martin (Assiniboia, NDP): Madam Speaker, in the five months since the troubles began, the damage has spread nearly 40,000 square kilometres, according to research that was being conducted at the University of Alberta before the brownouts made it impossible to proceed. Clearly containment is a priority, and we must consider effective strategies before it is too late. With all due respect to the member from Cardigan and the constituents who signed the petition there, a wall is not good enough, since by all reports the churn bubbles out of cracks in the ground and does not simply flow across the surface.
I have been in dialogue with experts in Florida, where the porous ground makes flood containment very difficult and where levees cannot prevent, for instance, a grassy park from flooding from below. I spoke to a team of scientists at the University of South Florida in Tampa, who have been doing some excellent research on containment of water floods. We are not dealing with water, to be sure, but I still believe that their work can help us make sure the damage does not spread even further than it has.
ORAL QUESTIONS
Travel Abroad
Mr. Vasily Sénéchal (Leader of the Opposition, Lib.): Madam Speaker, I wish the prime minister were here to hear the remarks I’ve prepared today, because I think it is important that she hear them and respond to them here in the House and not by way of a prerecorded video call three days later. Frankly I think it is quite embarrassing that she is neglecting her duty to the House and to the country by taking business trips overseas at the taxpayers’ expense, instead of comforting grieving families and creating solutions to the problems the rest of us are dealing with here at home. At the same time I am not surprised, since it is very typical for the ruling party to spend more time wooing West African oil barons than showing sympathy to its own citizens.