The emperor has no clothes. How is it that after all this time nothing has changed?
The public has witnessed for the past 40-plus years how fires have been controlled by the Mars water bombers quickly and effectively.
Now, an inexperienced forest minister has reinvented the wheel and we are all paying for it through loss of timber and the cost of prolonged activity of crews using inadequate equipment as was recently played out at Nimpkish Lake.
Churchill said: “give us the tools and we will finish the job.” The new emperor has created a new empire, surrounded by yes men in the friendly monopoly of party loyalists.
Other countries are dedicating their efforts to building fleets of larger water bombers, not bucket brigade fleets. It will probably require a change of government to assess the current situation. But then that is true of other botched policies for education, health care, etc.
Art Skipsey
Qualicum Beach