More than two months after fires devastated several northern Saskatchewan communities, residents are asking why some still have not received a visit from Premier Scott Moe.
The province’s Opposition NDP held a news conference Monday featuring northern residents criticizing Moe for not yet visiting Denare Beach, East Trout Lake or Sucker River.
Moe met with the recently returned residents of Beauval and La Loche on Monday, but the Opposition criticized him for planning to attend a golf tournament fundraiser for the Sask. Party in Elk Ridge, near Waskesiu, on Tuesday.
Asked for response to the criticism, the Sask. Party provided a statement. It did not address questions about Moe visiting Denare Beach, East Trout Lake and Sucker River, but fired back at the NDP on the topic of golf tournaments.
“The lost and reckless NDP have called for the cancellation of upcoming fundraisers,” the statement said. “The NDP are being dishonest and have already held two of their own golf tournaments on June 13th and June 24th, with another next week on August 21st with Leader Carla Beck.”
In July, Moe stated he had visited the Beauval area, the La Ronge area and the Montreal Lake area, along with some evacuation centres.
Dustin Trumbley, a resident of Denare Beach, said he had to watch through home cameras from an evacuation site in Swan River as his community was destroyed.
“I’m not saying they could have saved it, but they could have did something better and our life might be a lot nicer than what it is now,” Trumbley said. “Mr. Moe’s kind of showing to me that he doesn’t care about us in the North, and that’s why he’s not showing up…. We need some accountability to know this isn’t going to happen next year and what they’re going to do next year.”
Trumbley said his decision to rebuild was difficult, because he doesn’t have faith that the province’s wildfire response will improve in the future and he could lose his home again.
“He needs to take accountability, he needs to explain to us what he’s going to do to prevent this in the future, so we have reassurance for next season, or this fall, or the next thunderstorm,” Trumbley said.
Jordan McPhail, NDP MLA for the northern constituency of Cumberland, said Moe should focus on bringing wildfire victims relief.
“I think when you listen to people that I’ve been talking to across Northern Saskatchewan, they’ve felt abandoned by this premier,” McPhail said. “We’ve heard that they’ve needed more resources since Day 1, and it took far too long for the province to respond to the calls of the front-line firefighters.”
Saskatchewan’s ombudsman is in the process of investigating the Sask. Party’s wildfire response.
As of Friday, 86 active wildfires continued to burn in the province; only six of which were considered contained.
