Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd ask the Premier to confirm what programs and associated funding amounts are in place to specifically support businesses impacted by the wildfires, and how quickly can we get that support out to alleviate the financial burden on our local businesses? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Madam Premier.
I think I'd like to defer that to the Minister of Finance. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Premier. Minister responsible for Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, at present, there's two programs already operational, and they were both stood during the midst of the evacuation. The first one I'll speak to out of the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment. We changed the SEED program that a lot of businesses that are familiar with, added on a directive relating specifically to the wildfires. Under this program at present, there is a contribution amount of up to $5,000 for eligible costs that were incurred. There's also, under the BDIC, they've also had their board brought their board together and established a program that they're calling the Wildfire Assistance and Relief Measures Program. It's very similar, and it provides up to $5,000 again for evacuated communities, businesses, and $3,500 for those that are in business or in communities that were otherwise affected. And the two are working together just to ensure that they can try to maximize benefits for businesses that might be eligible under the program. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's good to hear that we do have some programs. It's not a lot of money because for Hay River and, you know, Enterprise and K'atlodeeche, you know, we've been through, you know, three major events here in the last 15 months, and it's really taken its impact it's really impacting businesses. So I think we have to take another look at that. But anyways, Mr. Speaker, I'd ask the Premier if any requests have gone into the federal government for additional financial support for businesses impacted by the wildfires; if so, and what has the response been? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That one, Mr. Speaker, really does lay largely in the purview of the Premier's office. But given the multidepartment nature of the evacuations and the emergencies, quite a number of departments are working together to be in touch with their counterparts. I know ITI officials are in touch with their counterparts. But beyond that, we've also all been contributing to work that's happening out of the Premier's office. And with the invitation of the federal government, knowing that we're going to have some asks, to prepare a very thorough and complete look at what kind of asks we might have and what they would be. So that is going out. If it hasn't gone out in a formal sense but, again, that's coming because of the conversations happening both out of the Premier's office but with a lot of our officials. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate that answer. You know, however, you know, like I say, we've gone through three major events in Hay River and, you know, a year after the flood, we're still you know, we still got a number of files that need to be actioned. And when I see what's happened here, it's going to be this is going to be still existing after the next Assembly, the way things are going. So I think we need to be really proactive and forceful when we're dealing with the federal government to try and get additional funds, otherwise we're going to lose residents, we're going to lose businesses, and we're going to see, you know, the NWT kind of end up being almost a third world area. So anyways, Mr. Speaker, what percent I'd ask the Premier what percentage of wildfire and evacuation costs will the federal government reimburse this government and how quickly can we expect to see that reimbursement? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, at a practical level, that's Department of MACA but, really, from a government fiscal perspective, I can say that the Department of Finance is looking quite closely at what we might get. There's a sliding scale for under the disaster financial assistance arrangements. That's the federal program that applies to all provinces and territories. When you get to a certain level, which we most certainly have hit, you can get up to 90 percent of eligible costs. And that's the tricky part, Mr. Speaker, is that I don't get to determine what the eligible costs are. What we do is we ask for everything. But it certainly is unlikely that we will be getting everything. And whatever we do get will come at 90 percent amount. But, Mr. Speaker, we certainly will continue to adapt the response of the Government of the Northwest Territories. Twice now in the sort of preambles of questions, the Members sort of mentioned if there's insufficiency. Mr. Speaker, just like I said in COVID many times, the government continues to monitor their response, and we'll continue to do its best to adapt as we go forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, you know, it's important, I think that I think that we as government, and the future government, really take a look at what happened here in this last few years because when you look at what happened with the flooding and also with the fires now, the impact it had. It had for Hay River, it impacted the fishing industry. For communities along the waterways, it impacted access to their cargo. You know, it just goes on and on. It you know, basically it really impacted businesses, individuals, health people's health, everything. So I think it's very important that this government and future governments really take a look at it. But, Mr. Speaker, over the past four years, this territory has experienced major disaster disasters, and there appears to be a pattern emerging.
Going forward, what is this government, in terms of planning and costing, doing to prepare for climate change and future disasters as they occur? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the wildfires, the floods, COVID have certainly impacted every single sector large and small. Larger businesses might have the ability to weather it better but that certainly doesn't make it any easier. It's also impacted all levels of government and it has impacted this government.
Mr. Speaker, we can't necessarily if I could plan for a large scale natural disaster, you'd see a budget line item for you know, to plan for the large scale emergency. We aren't able to plan for a large scale emergency by virtue of the fact that it's an emergency. What we can do, Mr. Speaker, is keep our fiscal House in order so that we have the capacity to provide relief and we have the capacity to provide funding, we have the capacity to support these emergent events as they occur, and to be able to stand and say look, we'll continue to adapt that response. So, Mr. Speaker, we were lucky to have forecasted a significant operating surplus this year. That has given us a cushion from which we were able to then provide a response to the emergency, and we're going to have to continue to be mindful of how we get back to that place of having large operational surpluses so we have that financial flexibility to be able to respond if or when an emergency occurs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Premier. With regard to the recent evacuations and adequacy of government supports, it's my understanding that evacuation costs are eligible up for up to 90 percent reimbursement under the federal guidelines for the disaster financial assistance arrangements. Page 19, eligible response costs include temporary relocation, shelter, food, clothing, rescue, transportation, and related social and inquiry services. End of quote.
So can the Premier confirm whether evacuation costs for NWT residents, including any GNWT initiatives such as the Evacuation Travel Support Program, are eligible for federal reimbursement? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Madam Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to defer that to the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Premier. Minister responsible for MACA.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, all disaster experienced to date in the Northwest Territories are eligible for reimbursement under two federal funding programs. The Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangement, or DFAA, and Emergency Management Assistance Program, or EMAP. In the event of a large scale natural disasters, the DFAA provides reimbursement to territorial, plus provincial governments for related costs, including evacuations. The GNWT will seek reimbursement for all evacuation related costs which we have incurred. This includes the Evacuation Travel Support Program and direct GNWT costs such as flights and accommodations. Evacuation costs incurred by NWT residents are not eligible for reimbursement under DFAA. This is because DFAA is a program of last resort. After all resources of funding, including insurance, have been exhausted, this it is not an insurance program. It is an and it's not a compensation program. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. So given that most of the evacuation costs are reimbursed well, I just don't understand why our support programs haven't been a little more generous and fairer. So I've received numerous complaints about the unfairness and inadequacy of the Evacuation Travel Support Program. So can the Premier tell us whether Cabinet is ready to reconsider the scope and amount of the current program and better support our residents that were evacuated? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Department of Finance is not considering expanding the scope and amount to the Evacuation Travel Support Program. The Evacuation Travel Support Program was established to provide financial relief to NWT residents who evacuated in a vehicle during the evacuation that occurred as a result of the 2023 wildfires. I recognize that funding through this program alone does not cover all potential costs associated with the evacuation or incurred by residents.
In addition to the Evacuation Travel Support Program, the GNWT offered a number of different supports for evacuees during the evacuation including evacuation charter flights, gas at the Alberta border for evacuees who drove, accommodations at evacuation centres, and private accommodations where space was limited at evacuation centres, food allowance and meals, access to free municipal and provincial campgrounds, and a donation of $400,000 to the United Way to support the number of community organizations. I encourage residents to contact their insurance companies to see if they have coverage for evacuation in their policy. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I'm sure the Minister recognizes that I'm going to keep fighting for better support for the evacuees. But during my statement, I recognized that it was quite an accomplishment to evacuate most Yellowknife residents safely over a very short period of time. However, there can and should be improvements made to how we work together with Indigenous governments, including legislative and policy changes. So can the Minister tell us how GNWT intends to work better with Indigenous governments in the future on emergency management? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, MACA's experience is that many Indigenous governments work directly with community governments as part of their local EMO. Emergency management works best when it's addressed at the local level and by those who can direct community government staff and have the authority to mobilize community government, its assets, as part of the emergency response. There does need to be more clarity on roles and responsibilities, including relationships between the local EMO and the regional EMO and the territorial EMO, especially given the Emergency Management Act assigned responsibility for emergency management to community governments. We recognize there needs to be further cooperation with Indigenous governments for emergencies, and we will we want to hear directly from the Indigenous governments as part of the after-action review. And I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, I've had a number of conversations with Indigenous leaders on that, and I agree we need to work better together. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. I believe he's quite sincere, and I do appreciate his efforts on that front, so.
I believe it is time, though, Mr. Speaker, to start to think about lessons learned about a fire and emergency management from these evacuations. There should be an independent third-party public review, and I think one of the options that needs to be considered is the Public Inquiries Act. But I'd like to know from the Minister whether Cabinet has a position and a direction on such a review of fire and emergency management. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yes, we've already started to turn our attention to the lessons learned on the emergency management side. People have been taking notes. We've been working with the municipalities, hearing things that work really well, and things that we can improve on. There will be an independent third party review. It is a standard practice in all jurisdictions to conduct an after-action review after disaster events to examine what happened, what worked, and what didn't, and to make recommendations for improvements going forward. The 2023 wildfire after-action review is anticipated to be a large undertaking and will be public. We want to hear from the public, staff working directly on the emergency response, Indigenous governments, NGOs, federal and provincial, territorial partners who assisted with providing evacuation supports and others. We will not be waiting for recommendations to start making improvements. We know that much work can start now, including review of the NWT emergency plan, increase training to support the community governments, starting a review with the Emergency Management Act. This work cannot be finalized until the recommendations are provided. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are related to the recent wildfires which caused widespread evacuations and total destruction to properties. The wildfire at Enterprise was burning prior to the devastating day of August 13th.
Can the Minister of ECC apprise this House as to why the wildfire near the hamlet of Enterprise was allowed to burn out of control for several days prior to the devastation and evacuation of the residents? Mahsi.
Thank you, Member for Deh Cho. Minister responsible for Environment and Climate Change.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can assure this House that the wildfire that impacted the community of Enterprise received initial attack and was actioned consistently prior to the disaster of August 13th. The fire was initially identified on August 2nd and an initial attack within two hours. I repeat, two hours.
Within two hours, that grew the fire grew from three hectares to 120 hectares with extreme weather conditions that include very strong winds. The fire was actioned by crews and/or aircraft as conditions allowed from the time it was discovered but the extreme fire conditions and extreme fire behaviour made fighting the fire very challenging and limited ability to for ignition operations to be completed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker, and mahsi to the Minister for the all the information that they were fighting the fires prior to. And it's kind of confusing because the fires kind of snuck up to the community on that day, you know, after all the Department of ECC and fire management help have all the necessary tools and information at their fingertips to determine whether wind and wind speed, yet these systems seemed to have failed on that day or just prior to that day.
Can the Minister apprise this House as to why these factors and tools were not taken into account prior to the devastating day? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to state again that the fire was actioned as conditions allowed from start on August 2nd. The tragic event on August 13th were because of the environmental conditions and extreme wind event. Wind gusted higher than forecasted in the area that already had severe drought and burning conditions. Our team worked with the best information available from the beginning of this fire and used the tools and approaches available to us. The unfortunate reality is that we had a perfect storm of buildup of forest fuel, very high drought codes, and extreme wind event, extremely challenging fire behaviour, that resulted in this situation. I recognize the impact that this devastating loss had on the hamlet of Enterprise, and my thoughts are with them. We had been in the community on September 5th and 11th with the senior officials to discuss the fire event on August 13th.
Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity to talk to a number of incident commanders, as well as we brought in our old retired firefighters that had dealt with fires in the past and they basically all said the same thing. We were in a situation that was unique to the us. They've never seen it before. We've seen disaster this fire react; we didn't expect it to do. So we did everything we could. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. And mahsi to the Minister for that. Mr. Speaker, I understand other wildfires at other communities were happening at the same time, and the fire attack crews may have been spread out.
Can the Minister apprise this House why no fire attack crews were at Enterprise although the fire was at their doorstep for days? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the fire was more than 30 kilometers away from Enterprise for days before it impacted the community. The fire was closer to Kakisa before this extreme wind event pushed it towards the community of Enterprise, which was further than predicted by models. Aircraft and crews actioned this fire consistently as conditions allowed throughout their response beginning with initial attack on August 2nd. The fire impacted on Enterprise was not a result of crews being spread out, but it was a result of extreme wind event and environmental conditions. This caused the fire to burn at extreme intensity and speed driven by wind which was made worse by severe drought and built up fuel in the environment causing explosive conditions. It is important to note that there are times crews and aircrafts were not able to fight the fire due to smoke and the fast movement of the fires. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Deh Cho.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker, and mahsi to the Minister. Mr. Speaker, we hear of a couple of brothers from Enterprise, along with other volunteers, putting out fires that were continually flaring up throughout the community of Enterprise after the initial wildfire. They note that there were no ECC fire crews for more than five days to assist and this was well after the main fire tore through the hamlet.
Can the Minister apprise this House as to why no fire crews were available in the community to monitor and fight the fires? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member talked about those two brothers who were helping and, again, I say thank you very much to them for the work that they did there.
Mr. Speaker, after the wildfire hit the community, many of the flareups that were associated with this were structural fires. Our wildfire firefighters are not trained in this. That there was very much about structural firefighters that need to do the work there.
While meeting with the hamlet, we are made aware of these concerns and are committed to looking into this in an after-action review. ECC is still working on fires and once the season is complete, the after-action review will be the number 1 priority. So we will be working on it. And some of this the challenges that the Member talked about is our wildfire fighters do not fight structural fires. That there is volunteer firefighters or fire crews. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to continue on my colleague's question my colleague from Frame Lake's question for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs in regards to the Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangement policy through the federal government.
My first question is in regards to airfare, Mr. Speaker.
So here in Yellowknife, the language that was coming out from the government was if you can get yourself on a commercial flight, get to the airport, get on a flight, get out of town, please leave as soon as you possibly can. And so numerous residents did that. They listened to the government. They booked themselves a flight if they could afford to do so, even if they couldn't really longterm sustainably afford to do so, they did it. I have residents who spent rent money on airfare in order to listen to the government, support the government's efforts to evacuate Yellowknife and get out of town. Those residents are now out airfare because they did not sit and wait for evacuation flights. And at the time, here in Yellowknife, the sentiment around town was one of chaos and confusion. There was a lot of miscommunication or not miscommunication, but competing communication, residents having to piece together communication and information that was coming out from different levels of government. And so residents did what they could to get out of town and get themselves and their family out of harm's way. And so I'm wondering if this policy speaks directly to recovery of cost for transportation, why will the government not refund the cost of airfare that residents paid for outofpocket at the request of this government? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, section 4 of the DFAA deals with the public sector expense eligibility. Section 4(1)(1) is in reference to provincial territorial eligible costs. If a province or a territory provides temporary relocation, shelter, etcetera to residents. The GNWT did provide evacuation support, including transportation, accommodation, and food. And so the GNWT will be making a claim for its cost for those eligible expenses under the DFAA. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I had the privilege of being on the ground here in Yellowknife on those days when an evacuation was called. On the evening of Wednesday I can't even remember the date now August 16th, when it was called, the people who could get on a flight that night, they got themselves on a flight that night. The very next day, thousands of people lined up at Sir John waiting for flights, and if you drove out to the airport after going down and looking at the thousands of people waiting for flights, there were no planes on the ground at the airport. So people were worried. They were concerned. And if a flight came up, they got on it. So while there were on Friday numerous flights available for people, multiple people got up and left town if they could because there was a lot of fear in town. There was a lot of people with kids, with elders, people human beings that just wanted to get on a plane and get out of town. For what I don't understand there is I understand what the Minister is saying that there were eventually charter flights available but there was a lot of confusion around that, and there was a lot of waiting and a lot of people who wanted to do what they could to get out. So I don't understand why the government can pay for a charter flight but they can't pay for a resident. As we saw with the reentry flights, there was a lot of confusion, a lot of waiting. Some people I have some residents who have never received an email back from the reentry registration emails. Luckily, they are back in town. They paid for a flight and they got themselves home, but they had to get back to work, they had to be here so that the rest of us could enjoy their services and they could be here to serve the rest of town. So while people tried to support evacuation flights, it didn't always work out.
But my next question, Mr. Speaker, is in regards to hotels. Residents from Hay River were told get out now, go to Grande Prairie. They got out now. They went to Grande Prairie. They weren't set up and ready for residents yet. Red Cross said to them, go book yourself at a hotel. They later found out they didn't pick the right hotel, so they weren't covered. I have residents who went to the evacuation centre in Edmonton. They waited for five days before they received a hotel. So those are days that residents paid for outofpocket but they were following the rules of government. And I know I'm going on a lot, and I could go on more, Mr. Speaker, but I'll leave it there.
Why will the government not repay these costs for our accommodations? Why will the government not repay these costs for airfare for residents? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's going to be a little bit of a longwinded answer. There was a whole bunch of information shared there that seemed to be messy. First of all, let's talk about the lineup. Yes, it was long. We understood that. There was planes. They were trying to get our crews in there. But the second day, as people we had people get on the planes that were told to go back home the first day. The second day they got onto the plane. They were able to do that. We had people registering and getting on the planes that way there.
In regards to the question that the Member asked there was a couple questions but I think there was three, but I will focus on her last one. It was about the Red Cross. I've heard that from other people. I've heard where people got into the host community, Red Cross didn't have them or told them to go find their own, to phone back. So what I'm telling people is to reach back out to us, to get back to us, tell us what happened, and then we will work on that. Because we've had that situation just not in Grande Prairie, we've heard it in Edmonton, we've heard it in other places there. So we're asking people to reach out to us, and we will work on that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So what I heard there is that if somebody has registered with the Red Cross and they still had to pay for their own hotel that they can come back to the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs and seek compensation for the cost of those hotels. And I'm wondering if the Minister can please let me know if I'm right on that, and also who they would contact in order to get that done. Thank you.
Yes, that's correct. The second thing is who to contact, reach out to the department, or give it to yourself as the MLA, reach out to them and then work with us. I can tell you the Member has given me a number of emails, and we've been working on those situations. So please get us those emails because we need to get fix this because it was unfortunate that situation happened. We have to rely on our host province, and that's what they did. Some of them had Red Cross to help them there, and they were working on it. So, again, if we missed those things and we're going to miss some of those things. Please reach out to us, and we'll work on it. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So that's great news. That's very good news. So anybody in the territory who was registered with the Red Cross, was unable to get a hotel for whatever reason, reach out to your MLA, and we can advocate on your behalf. So that's really good news.
Mr. Speaker, the last question I have is in regards to insurance deductibles. A number of residents quickly learned that insurance policies are not all built the same. Some residents had insurance deductibles waived.
Whereas others had significant, significant, insurance deductibles that they had to pay in order to receive any support from their insurance companies. And so I'm wondering if MACA plans to apply for reimbursement of resident deductibles through the DFAA. Thank you.
