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.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. She's probably not going to like answer. Unfortunately, when people have their insurance, that's the program that they have to do and they have to look into it. Unfortunately, I have insurance and I haven't even looked at mine until after what we've been dealing with. So unfortunately, the disaster financial assistance is last resort. If you have insurance, you need to go to your insurance company. And I am sorry to the residents that have higher deductibles or don't have the same supports, it's unfortunate, but that's the insurance companies that you have to deal with. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Tu NedheWiilideh.
