The emotional connection to the places people call home has been on full display this week, from the Cariboo wildfires evacuees in Prince George to Tl'etinqox First Nation chief Joe Alphonse to Quia Birch, the Prince George man who finally became a Canadian citizen this week.
Birch has lived all of his 22 years literally without a home and native land. Born in Arizona, his mother didn't register his birth, brought him to B.C. when he was a toddler and left him to be raised by a family in McBride. His lack of formal identity and citizenship only became an issue after he graduated from high school because he wasn't able to work, drive or travel outside of the country.
News media attention to Birch's situation and lengthy efforts by Prince George-Peace River-Northern Rockies MP Bob Zimmer led to permanent residency 16 months ago and finally a citizenship ceremony in Surrey on Tuesday.
A driver's licence may be just a card and a passport may be nothing but a little blue book to most Canadians but Birch's ability to now get both makes him Canadian. He's no longer just a resident. He's a citizen. He has a real home at last.
The thousands of wildfire evacuees currently in Prince George are a stark reminder about what home means, particularly when it's taken away even temporarily. The residents of 100 Mile House, Williams Lake and the rural Cariboo appreciate the hospitality offered to them but they don't want to be here. Prince George is not home.
Some Cariboo residents have chosen to ignore the evacuation alerts and the orders to leave. In B.C., an evacuation order, despite its name, is actually just a strong suggestion. An evacuation order does not give the RCMP or the government the authority to use force to remove residents from their homes. Although the B.C. government was considering following Manitoba's lead in making evacuation orders mandatory, granting police the power to lead people away in handcuffs if necessary and then giving them the bill for their trouble, the current policy remains in effect.
For many people, ignoring an evacuation order sounds silly. Houses can be rebuilt, after all. The replacement for everything is an insurance claim, government assistance and a trip to the store away. Risking injury and even death for a house and the land it sits on seems stupid, particularly when children are involved.
The Ministry of Children and Family Development does have the authority to seize children at risk of harm and routinely does so when the situation warrants, regardless of whether the children and/or the parents are Aboriginal and regardless of whether the children live on a First Nations reserve or not.
Ministry social workers work closely with Indigenous communities to make that process as least traumatic as possible, for the children, the parents and their families. Removing children from their community is considered a last resort, even if a forest fire is burning nearby.
That's the context that prompted Alphonse's angry response about the very suggestion that police and MCFD could come onto his reserve to remove children from Tl'etinqox families not following the evacuation order. Evacuation alerts and orders are given by municipalities and regional districts, following recommendations made to them by the province. First Nations have the same authority as municipalities to issue evacuation alerts and orders or to ignore those recommendations.
From a legal standpoint, even if evacuation orders were mandatory in B.C., the RCMP would have no jurisdiction to enforce it in Alexis Creek because Chief Alphonse has given no such order for the Tl'etinqox First Nation.
Alphonse spoke to reporters at length about why he and roughly 300 others among the 1,000 residents of his reserve were staying behind. Simply put, he said home is not just a house or even a specific geographical location. For him and for many of his people, the sense of belonging and place of home is part of their identity. That make home and what home means to themselves and their loved ones is worth fighting for, regardless of the risk of harm.
Many cultures and peoples around the world feel the same way about their homes, as do many non-Indigenous Canadians. Soldiers risk their lives (and are willing to leave home) to preserve that very sentiment. For the Cariboo residents who chose to stay behind and ignore the evacuation orders, Alphonse's words make perfect sense.
That's why the old phrase "home is where the heart is" may be misleading. It implies that home is mobile and easily transferable but the events of this week show the opposite is just as often the case.
For the evacuees in Prince George, this is an emotional time because they packed up their families, their animals and their valuables and left more than four walls and a piece of property behind. We're happy to be here for them in their time of need but we hope they are back home as soon as possible, whatever home looks like when they get there.
-- Editor-in-chief Neil Godbout
