Prince George, B.C. – The  Provincial State of Emergency  declared because of the wildfire situation  may be over  but Cariboo-Prince George MP  Todd Doherty is calling on the  Federal Government  to  work directly with those impacted by the fires as the region moves into recovery mode.

Doherty rose in the House  of Parliament yesterday and delivered  the  grim statistics about  the impact  the wildfires have had  on his riding.  30 thousand cattle  lost,  more than a million hectares burned, homes and businesses lost.

“We may not be in the headlines anymore,  but  we are still burning” says Doherty.   He says the Prime Minister  has struck  a Ministerial  committee  to  assist with recovery,  but Doherty says the Committee is not meeting with  the  right people “They say they’ve held some round table meetings, that they’ve met with   leaders, but last week I spent  time in the riding  meeting with Mayors and talking with the Regional District  and they haven’t been included,  so who are they talking to? ”

He says at the very least, the committee should be meeting with the  local leaders “who are tasked with leading our communities  and putting lives back together.”  He says  he wanted to add some sobering facts  so the Government  would  understand just how devastating the wildfires have been  to the Cariboo.”I want to make sure, that while we  may not be on the front page , I will not let our communities  in rural  British Columbia  be forgotten.”

Doherty says  there are many  families and industries that have been devastated.   So far , there has been no dollar figure mentioned on what  might be needed to help  the region recover,  but   Doherty says the recovery  in Fort McMurray  was  said to   have more than $10 billion dollars in economic loss and damage “You can’t compare  the two  incidents,  but our tourism industry, our agriculture industry, our forestry industry,  mining,  small mom and pops,  communities that already have a hard time recruiting and retaining  families. We need to  see what  we can do  to ensure  we  can recruit professionals,  recruit families and retain  families in the region.”

He says while it’s  hard to put a price tag on the  losses,   it is imperative the  community leaders are part of the discussion  “Those leaders have to be at the table when our Prime  Minster or Ministerial  Committee is having the discussion.   We need those discussions going on now,  we can’t afford any lag time,  we need to have the discussion now so we can look a the short term, the mid term and  what the long term future looks like and what are the measures we can put in  place to ensure  this doesn’t happen again.”