Many reasons to call a state of emergency

Why is Premier John Horgan really rejecting calling a state of emergency while more than 300 fires burn in the province?

Horgan claims that calling a state of emergency only brings more people together, but the people responsible for fighting fires and protecting communities say a state of emergency would allow them to:

• ask for more out-of-province/international help

• call on private companies to assist • close areas that are high risk to humanstarted fires

• call on organizations to help co-ordinate efforts to assist those affected

• be better prepared for the residents on evacuation orders

One of the criticisms that came out of Lytton burning to the ground was that the provincial government was ill-prepared to provide essential help, so the residents were left on their own.

During this heat wave the criticism was that the provincial government did not have a plan and was not prepared to respond to reduce the loss of life.

We are dealing with floods, fires, plagues, and it seems like our elected just keeping doing business as usual. Perhaps the real reason is we can’t afford the “water” to put these fires out!

Yet the elected at every level of government keep building to attract more people; more industry; more modes of travel to build the economy.

Declaring a state of emergency wouldn’t attract thousands of vacationers to B.C., would it? Once again, the economy trumps people who call B.C. home.

Jo-Anne Berezanski North Saanich