The minister now tasked to oversee emergency services says a realignment of that government service is in line with their election platform of making communities safer.

All emergency operations, such as fighting wildfires and responding to floods and other disasters, now come under forestry, agriculture and lands instead of justice and public safety.

Minister Pleaman Forsey says integrating the two emergency response teams to fall under the jurisdiction of one department only makes sense.

He says Forestry has its own incident management teams and emergency services have their incident management teams and “we have a long-standing working relationship with each other, so under one roof, it makes sense.”