A commentary by a bestselling author who was severely injured while serving in Afghanistan. He lives in Nanaimo.
By far the most rewarding deployment of my military career was in the sweltering summer of 2003, when British Columbia was suffering through its worst drought in 100 years.
A huge high-pressure area had became anchored over the province’s Interior when a lightning strike on Aug. 16 in Okanagan Mountain Provincial Park ignited a fire storm that would eventually consume over 250 square kilometres of valuable forest. Soldiers from every reserve regiment in B.C. were called up, along with several regular force units.
We were bivouacked at the local athletic stadium, given a day of basic forest firefighting training and were dispatched to the fire lines to mop up hotspots behind the professional forest firefighters.
For 45 days, we dug for embers as far as two feet underground and drenched them with water from hand pumps. The locals were very appreciative, constantly dropping off cakes and pies for us at the stadium gate.
Signs popped up all over the city thanking the military. At the height of the fire, more than 2,500 Canadian Forces personnel fought the biggest wildfire in British Columbia history.
In addition to regular force infantry soldiers and gunners tasked with mopping up hotspots, two contingents of combat engineers, two helicopter detachments of four aircraft and four medical units provided troops. A full platoon of logistics personnel were required to coordinate the third-largest domestic operation in Canadian military history after the 1997 Red River flood and the 1998 ice storms in Ontario.
In November 2021, there was a cataclysmic flood in Abbotsford, caused by the latest climatic nightmare, ominously called an atmospheric river, which deluged the area with more than 100 millimetres of rain in 48 hours.
In a few days, the low-lying farming area of Sumas Prairie was under several feet of water. Close to 750 military personnel and nine aircraft were assigned to help.
The troops filled sandbags to protect homes and businesses, built a boom system called a tiger dam to protect a major highway and delivered more than 31,000 kilograms of food, vaccines and other supplies to nearby communities.
I deployed to Afghanistan as a Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC) operator, tasked with liaising with tribal elders in order to assess the needs of villagers and to coordinate with NGOs and government agencies to provide those essentials, like clean water, electricity and schooling, especially for girls.
The intent was to curry goodwill towards the Canadian battle group and NATO and keep the villagers where they were instead of roaming the battlespace trying to acquire the necessities of life.
But CIMIC has an important function at home as well, responding to emergencies by assessing their scope and coordinating the response with civilian agencies, first responders and Armed Forces assets.
One of my first tasks when I started my CIMIC training was to assess a fire and flood scenario in Alberta. I think the Department of National Defence should stand up a specialized unit to respond immediately to climate emergencies, such as wildfires, floods, and massive storms.
Currently, the armed forces must wait for a request for assistance by a province, but all too often once the province realizes they need help, it’s often already too late.
The minister of national defence should be able to act proactively and deploy the unit early in the crisis. I think the unit should be composed of a two CIMIC operators, a section of combat engineers and soldiers from the electrical and mechanical engineering branch as well as the logistics branch.
The unit could train by working up scenarios for various climate emergencies all over Canada, such as responding to a tsunami on Vancouver Island, for which Royal Canadian Navy personnel could be brought in to advise on evacuation by sea.
Exercises to enhance our search and rescue capacity responding to a hurricane in Nova Scotia could be held in collaboration with the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Halifax.
Canada’s small army punched above its weight in Afghanistan because we have the best troops in the world. Canadian soldiers are well-trained, well-led and highly motivated.
When we joined the Armed Forces, we all swore an oath to defend Canada. It’s time to engage our troops proactively in the fight against our most dangerous enemy while there is a Canada to defend.
