Firefighting planes needed more than military jets

Editor: The lack of preparedness in fighting the wildfires here in B.C. and elsewhere in Canada is appalling.

All the money that is being contemplated for fighter jets for our military, should, instead, be spent on fire-fighting bombers and spotter planes.

The BC Liberal government as well as the previous federal Conservative party is totally to blame for this fiasco.

The people who are being forced to flee the wildfires are not “evacuees,” as the media says; they are, in fact, “refugees. ”Our “refugees” are in just as much danger a those we have invited into Canada from the Middle East, and should be given just as much short and long term assistance.

Most of them will be able to return to their homes, but some will have no homes to go to. I would guess that a lot of those families, because of their location in the “boonies” don’t have property insurance and will require taxpayers’ money to help rebuild.

All of this could have been avoided if our governments had planned proactively rather than waiting for rains to fight the fires.

We know this problem is going to get worse in the future.

We also know that the lack of forestry personnel, a department that could have foreseen the potential of fires and demanded that more equipment was going to be needed, was depleted by the former BC Liberals trying to save money.

At the same time, we need to push the NDP/Greens to get with the program and rectify this and other issues while they have the opportunity. Frank Martens, Summerland