First Nations want own national fire marshal
•Afterseveral deadly fires, public consultations begin this fall to create a national Indigenous Fire Marshal’s Office.
The Aboriginal Firefighters’ Association of Canada, the group leading the charge to create the agency, is hosting engagement sessions across Canada this fall and winter, president Arnold Lazare said.
“It’s consensus that a fire marshal is needed, but we really would like to get an understanding from the grassroots,” he said. “We don’t want to just do a study and then have it go nowhere. We’re really focusing on the long-term goals.”
The association set a target of April 1 to establish the office, but that is flexible, Lazare said. The organization and its partners want to ensure proper funding is in place, the mandate is sound and the office is set up to meet the needs of Indigenous people from coast to coast.
“It’s very important because there’s a lot of holes in the present system,” he said. “Everybody wants to fill the gaps, it’s just a matter of what is the best solution.”
Nearly two years ago, the Oneida First Nation in southwestern Ontario witnessed a house fire that killed a father and his four young boys.
At the time, then-chief Randall Phillips called the fire the “perfect example” of the fallout of a housing crisis and lack of federal housing support First Nations communities are facing.
And last winter, a threeyear-old boy was killed in a house fire in Oshweken, a village at Six Nations of the Grand River near Brantford, Ont.
The Assembly of First Nations and federal government already have thrown their support behind the project.
Because Indigenous communities are under federal jurisdiction and not subject to provincial fire and building codes, it’s up to each community to enforce building and fire safety standards, Lazare said. The dedicated office would help set those standards and ensure they’re followed.
But the office is only one part of improving fire safety in Indigenous communities, New Democrat MP Charlie Angus said. “Some (communities) don’t even have a fire truck. We have communities with horrific housing conditions, where you have 20 people in a house with a makeshift wood stove,” Angus said.
“If the federal government is not at the table putting in the proper infrastructure for fire safety that any other community takes for granted … how can we enforce standards?”