REGINA - Opposition New Democrats resumed their attacks on the government’s wildfire response, this time raising questions of why a new water bomber aircraft was grounded during the fire response.
At a news conference at the Legislature Monday, Opposition Public Safety critic Nicole Sarauer raised questions about why the newly-purchased Conair Dash-8- Q400AT “secretly sat idle on the tarmac” in La Ronge during the wildfire.
The NDP pointed to publicly available flight tracking data from FlightAware, which noted that airtanker tail code C-FFYJ had been delivered to the province on May 30, having flown from Conair's base in Abbotsford, BC, to La Ronge.
“Since landing, the aircraft hasn't logged a single flight,” said Sarauer.
“It's been sitting there, completely unused, ever since. I don't need to remind any of you what happened days later. On June 2, the communities of La Ronge, Air Ronge and the Lac La Ronge Indian Band were evacuated due to wildfire, and on June 3, homes in Denare Beach burnt to the ground. 15 homes in Sucker River, a 15-minute drive from the airport, were also lost.”
Sarauer then blasted comments by Premier Scott Moe at an SPSA wildfire briefing on June 6 about the new tanker. He had said “we had ordered and budgeted for four significant upgrades to our tanker fleet, four tankers that will be coming in the next number of years. One of the tankers will be arriving here this spring in the days ahead, and it will be available as soon as it is able.”
Sarauer also pointer to the SPSA briefing on June 11, when the Premier added “we could have used it a few weeks ago.”
Sarauer added that to make matters worse, “it's possible that the SPSA has government nearly lost the plane.”
She noted the wildfire breached La Ronge air base on June 2, and “sources have told the Official Opposition that the new air tanker was reportedly in danger and had to be physically pushed to get it out of the path of the flames.
“We've also heard that as of last week, the Sask Party government still hadn't hired or trained a pilot to operate this aircraft. While people were fleeing their homes and communities were burning, the Sask Party left a brand-new air tanker sitting on the tarmac.”
Sarauer said the “government should have brought it into action” the moment it arrived, “dumping water on the fires burning in Saskatchewan's communities.”
“Premier Moe needs to answer why his government let this water bomber sit idle and why he either lied or didn't have a clue during a wildfire crisis the likes of which we haven't seen in a decade.”
Minister McLeod accuses NDP of politicizing the wildfire response
At the daily SPSA conference call Monday afternoon on the wildfire situation, Minister of Corrections, Policing and Public Safety Tim McLeod responded to the NDP accusations by asccusing them of politicizing the issue.
"I learned about the comments made by the NDP earlier this morning, and it is unfortunate that even during a state of emergency, they're still wanting to politicize tragedy," said McLeod.
"This is not a situation where we had resources that were available that were left on the table or, in this case, left on the tarmac. This government has made a significant investment to add four additional aircraft to our fleet of force-fighting equipment. The first of those planes did arrive after we had already declared a state of emergency on or about, my understanding is May 30th. The reality of the situation is we were already in a state of emergency. The pilots that had been training to operate that plane, and I will let Marlo speak a little more in detail about the operational side of this, had received all of the simulator training that they could up until that time. But to comply with Transport Canada regulations, the requirement is that they would train on that particular aircraft, and the operational decision was made not to remove those four pilots from active duty, fighting fires, protecting our communities, so that they could train on the new plane, but rather to continue protecting our communities and saving lives...
"It is fully our expectation that that plane, once our pilots are able to train on it and comply with the Transport Canada regulations, that that plane will be added to the fleet and will be available this forest firefighting season. But again, our government is focused on saving lives and protecting communities, and when we are in a state of provincial emergency, doing that is our priority."
SPSA President Marlo Pritchard reiterated it was an operational decision.
"As the Minister said, these were operational necessities and operational decisions that, you know, to take pilots off of operational rotation would reduce or impact our missions. In addition, what we did is we brought in and capitalized on our compacts, and we brought in Q400s from out of province. We brought in water bombers from out of province, from BC as well. So we really did, I guess, enhance our capabilities, our capacities, and did not have a negative impact because of the Q400 sitting on the tarmac, as you said. The safety of our pilots and the safety of our crews and alignment with the Transport Canada rules required us to pivot and change to really round our focus on the operational necessities at that time."
SPSA Vice President of Operations Steve Roberts had this to say:
"The government's plan is as we will be retiring the (Convair) 580 aircraft as soon as the Q400s are operational --- we are actually training our own pilots to take over those duties. So they have already received ground schooling and simulator training, but they will be required to do more training, as much as 24 hours, 25 hours of actual stick time in the air and more before they are considered operationally certified under Transport Canada rules. So again, we will be using our own, and we had envisioned at the time in April that it wouldn't be operational, that we'd be using the spring to allow some of those pilots to take some training. Obviously, our fire situation did not allow that. We needed to keep operational aircraft in the air operational to do their work. That means keeping mechanics with those aircraft to keep them flying every day they're needed.
"So yes, that's put us slightly behind of where we thought, but at some point when we have the opportunity, we will be continuing our training exercises on that first aircraft with as many pilots as we can, knowing that we will be receiving a second aircraft next year and that we want them to be air ready."
As for whether the Q400 aircraft had to be physically moved, Roberts said they moved all of the aircraft in La Ronge to the central park. The aircraft would have been towed, he said.
"It would have been towed into place with what's called a tug, which would tow it to wherever it is. When aircraft are on the ground without their engines running, they are towed to their location with specialized aircraft. So we moved a number of aircraft that were in operations to the central part of the field to avoid any impact as the fire neared La Ronge in the early stages of that fire."
In a news release following the government media availability, the NDP characterized Minister McLeod as admitting the Q400 aircraft had been grounded.
“This shouldn’t have been a surprise – the Sask. Party ordered these planes over a year ago and should have had a plan in place to get this water bomber in the air as soon as it arrived,” said Sarauer in a statement. “There is absolutely zero justification for this government to leave a state-of-the-art water bomber on the tarmac during the worst wildfires in a decade.”
In a statement the government again blasted the NDP for "once again trying to politicize a tragedy that has impacted thousands of Saskatchewan lives."
The statement noted that the SPSA has been preparing fordelivery of the aircraft by training pilots with ground school and simulators.
"However, Transport Canada requires an additional 20 hours of training to fly new aircraft, as well as 25 hours to learn to fight wildfires with those specific aircraft. Those hours cannot be logged until the actual aircraft arrives," their statement read.
"It is disingenuous and dishonest for the NDP to suggest this plane could have been ‘brought it into action the moment arrived.’ Doing so would be dangerous for SPSA staff, crew and the general public, as well as a violation of Transport Canada regulations. Additionally, the pilots who are to receive the training on the new aircraft would have had to be removed from active duty where they were fighting to save lives and protect Saskatchewan communities. The Government of Saskatchewan will fully comply with Transport Canada regulations and will ensure our pilots are fully operational during a wildfire state of emergency, even if the opposition would not."
