Sarah Mills: Help is needed for wildfire evacuees in Saskatchewan
The wildfire situation in Saskatchewan may be turning a corner, but the damage will be felt for some time. On this Day o...
Premier Scott Moe announced relief in the form of $500 for wildfire evacuees on Wednesday, but NDP Leader Carla Beck said the plan is light on details and leaves lots of questions.
Beck said financial assistance is needed, but the Government of Saskatchewan should have a more thorough plan.
“People need better than this right now,” she said.
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“When you’ve been through a crisis, you need clear communication and that is one thing we continue to hear from people who’ve been evacuated and those who are back in their home communities trying to keep things together.”
Beck also suggested the use of an e-Transfer system to disburse the funds instead of having that handled by the respective community leaders of evacuees.
“It would be something that would be simpler to administer for sure. Something that allows people to make their own decisions about what they need,” she said.
The opposition leader also said it would be an added burden to make community leaders responsible for the distribution of the money.
“All I’m thinking about are those – whether it’s mayor and council, Chief and council – and what they’ve been through already, and now they’re going to be asked to administer a financial program that appears to have no details,” Beck said.
Beck said the Government of Saskatchewan didn’t plan ahead of wildfire season.
“We see recommendations that were made by communities (Prince Albert Grand Council) and others going back a decade. We still don’t see the government having taken up any of those recommendations,” she said.
“This is chronically an issue that the government has; they don’t put enough in the budget for forest fires. They seem to be very reluctant to plan ahead for issues like this and unfortunately, we see what happens when a government (hasn’t) planned for an emergency.”
Beck said as premier, she would establish a regular working relationship with northern communities and incorporate some of their recommendations from the frontline to prepare for wildfire season. She also said she would call in federal resources.
“Yes, we need to hire more Type 3 firefighters from communities for the North. Absolutely, we need to do that – it’s not an either-or situation. There’s a lot of mop-up to do,” Beck said.
