Final evacuees reach Winnipeg safely while firefighting efforts increase

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This article was published 24/05/2018 (2163 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — As the last of 1,800 evacuees reached Winnipeg, the Canadian Red Cross (CRC) says it has tailored its response to this week’s evacuations after problems surrounded last August’s airlift of Island Lake reserves.

But the agency can’t say whether it undertook contingency plans for Little Grand Rapids or Pauingassi, aimed at preventing the type of communication confusion that has overshadowed this week’s evacuations.

The last flight out of Little Grand Rapids left around 12:30 p.m. local time, according to Indigenous Services Canada (ISC), while the province says it’s called in for more support to save homes around the area.

In a Friday afternoon news release, the province said it was sending more personnel and equipment to the area, to help protect homes. “Warm temperatures and strong winds continue to make firefighting difficult in many areas,” reads the statement.

Wildfires on Manitoba’s eastern border got out of control Monday, after both Little Grand Rapids Chief Ray Keeper and the province said they tried in vain to get in touch with each other.

“I dealt with it right away; there’s no delay on my part,” Keeper said. “We waited for the government to give the go-ahead saying that the fire’s out of hand, but they told me three times they had it under control.”

Manitoba Infrastructure Minister Ron Schuler and the Sustainable Development department countered that the province tried in vain to phone chief and council in Little Grand Rapids, but weren’t able to even leave a voicemail.

That complaint echoed criticism during last August’s evacuation of Island Lake communities, when the three reserves said they failed to get in touch with the federal and provincial governments, and that the Canadian Red Cross (CRC) placed them in unsafe areas in Winnipeg.

In February, after Island Lake officials aired those complaints at a parliamentary committee, CRC’s vice-president for Manitoba told the Free Press they were assisting any of the province’s 63 First Nations that wanted to craft a “community emergency plan” over the course of five years, thanks to federal funding.

“We will work with the communities to find the plan that suits them,” Shawn Feely said at the time. He described the plan as setting out contacts for governments and First Nations officials to stay in touch, and protocol to ensure evacuations go smoothly.

On Friday, Red Cross spokesman Jason Small said CRC was in the second year of that process, but was not immediately able to say whether Little Grand Rapids or Pauingassi had formed plans.

“Our team is working to increase the capacity of First Nations in Manitoba, to be prepared and on disaster risk-reduction,” he said. “We work with them, so that it is their plan they’re developing; we’re not dictating anything.”

The Island Lake evacuees had also raised numerous concerns about how they were treated in Winnipeg.

Some claim the city’s local drug dealers plied young people with free samples of methamphetamine to get them hooked. A band councillor claimed that a sex-offender had been housed alongside evacuees in an open-air convention centre in 2017, leaving women to take shifts throughout the night to make sure children weren’t preyed upon.

Small said CRC is doing its best to prevent that from happening again.

“We have security guards, we work closely with the police and we take steps to protect the evacuees as best we can,” he said.

He also noted that all evacuees are staying in hotels this week. With more than three times as many evacuees from Island Lake last year, less than 2,000 were placed in shelters like the RBC Convention Centre.

Island Lake evacuees had also complained about being dispersed throughout the city, away from family members, including those with medical needs.

“We learned to bring in our partner organizations right away,” Small said.

This week, CRC tapped the area’s tribal council, the Southeast Resource Development Council, to help with translation. Though outside its jurisdiction for the north, Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak provided part of its crisis-counselling team to help distressed evacuees.

“We’re taking the opportunity to get feedback from evacuees on the spot, if they have concerns. We have mechanisms in place to be able to take that information and put it to use as quickly as possible.”

ISC Minister Jane Philpott wrote that her department “is working in lock-step with Public Safety, the Canadian Armed Forces, the Canadian Red Cross, the Province of Manitoba and First Nation partners to ensure that residents are supported throughout both the evacuation process and in their temporary placements in Winnipeg.”

But NDP MP Daniel Blaikie said in Friday’s Question Period that he’s seen “the worst coordination efforts in years,” and that “people were left stranded until the last minute.”

“It seems the experiences of previous years have not been taken into account,” said Blaikie, MP for Elmwood-Transcona, asking that “what happened this week never happens again.”

Philpott’s assistant, MP Don Rusnak, responded that the government activated its emergency co-ordination centre as soon as it was asked for help Tuesday afternoon.

“We are ensuring that essential supports are in place for evacuees, and this includes mental health supports as needed,” he told the Commons. “Community members are our absolute priority.”

Elsewhere, rain has helped firefighters beat back the fires near Ashern. “There are no immediate concerns to the community and nearby structures,” reads the statement, adding that rain also helped with fires near Sapotaweyak Cree Nation, which remains evacuated in hotels in Brandon, Swan River and The Pas.

The province says 10 new fires started Thursday, bringing the total number of fires in Manitoba to 183 so far this year; the 20-year average for May 24 is 105 fires. It’s been helped by 120 Ontario firefighters and four Quebec waterbombers.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca