Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to follow up on my Member's statement with questions for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Mr. Speaker, since the community initiated the evacuation to Ford Liard, does the department cover the costs incurred by the community of Nahanni Butte? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Municipal governments are actually responsible for evacuation plans. The Department of Municipal and Community Affairs works with them to develop their emergency evacuation plans and also to review them. If the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs asked residents to leave because we have deemed a need for an evacuation, then we will cover the costs. If the community takes it upon themselves to ask people to leave, then it is up to the community to deal with those costs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I thank the Minister for that answer. During this situation where they evacuated, halfway through, all of a sudden the EMO committee was activated, and they actually encouraged the residents to stay in Ford Liard. With that extra day of costs, will the department be covering those costs?
Absolutely. On the second day of evacuation, the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs decided that it would be better to keep the residents out of the community for an extra day. Those costs would be covered, and we have just got the municipality collecting those at this time.
I thank the Minister for that answer. I think the community will be happy to at least get some of their costs back, and I greatly appreciate it. In normal situations, Fort Simpson is the location where people get located to. Unfortunately the community, with the ferry and that, decided to go to Fort Liard. Fort Liard did a great job, but will the department be looking at getting the community of Fort Liard better prepared for future situations so that they can actually evacuate to Fort Liard instead of Fort Simpson, which has to rely on a ferry system?
Yes, after any kind of an emergency or an evacuation within a community, the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs does do a review of the situation to see if there are issues that we could make better. I do want to put a call out to the community of Nahanni Butte. They did an awesome job of the evacuation. It was without incident. They did a really great job. There were some things, like I say, transferring to Fort Liard when they should have gone to Fort Simpson. Those are issues that we are looking at to see if we can make their plan better for the next time - hopefully not next time.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I agree with you. I hope it never has to happen again. Unfortunately, in my 23 years, I have seen a number of evacuations. I am hoping that you are going to be working with the Hamlet of Fort Liard so they can be better prepared. My last question is about the communication system. Unfortunately, the community used Facebook as their way of getting information out about how to evacuate, and the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs used emergency bulletins and web pages to get that information. However, when the community evacuates, they are on the other side of the river. They do not have access to this information, or they cannot get this information. Will the Minister or the Department be looking at a better way of communicating so that the people can continue to do a better job at evacuating?
Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Yes, as stated earlier, any time that there is a major disaster, in this case, an evacuation, we do review all the techniques that were used, the tactics, and see if we can make them better. Some communities, I hate to say that are in better situation than others. I know market communities, they will put them on public service announcements. They have webpages. They have radio announcements
Smaller communities unfortunately do not often have that service, so sometimes it is a matter of communities actually having to go door-to-door to get people evacuated. Nahanni Butte did have cell service so that helped them. When we were bringing people back and asking them to stay longer, we actually coordinated that with the band manager who did a really great job in this case of actually communicating to the residents of Nahanni Butte, but it is something that we need to look at, and to see if there are ways that we can improve communications for residents, especially in the smaller communities where they do not have the services that market communities do. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
