REGINA - The wildfire situation in Saskatchewan's North is becoming more and more a concern for elected officials and cabinet ministers.
Among those is Premier Scott Moe. The indication is he will be speaking alongside Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency officials in Prince Albert at their update at 1:30 p.m. today on the wildfire situation.
What Moe might say is still not known as of this writing, but his appearance follows Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew’s media conference Wednesday afternoon in which Kinew declared a state of emergency in that province.
A major concern on both sides of the border is the worsening wildfire situation in the Flin Flon and Creighton areas. A mandatory evacuation of both those communities was ordered yesterday. There have also been evacuations of several other Saskatchewan communities and First Nations in the past number of days.
Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill was asked about what the impact was on health care facilities at a media availability in Regina Thursday. Cockrill told reporters he was on the phone late last night regarding the situation in Creighton and Flin Flon.
He paid tribute to Saskatchewan Health Authority, Saskatchewan Air Ambulance, and Rise Air in “helping us evacuate Saskatchewan patients out of the Flin Flon facility.”
Cockrill said there was a “pretty significant effort undertaken by those teams. We're moving those patients that were in the Flin Flon Hospital to seven different facilities in Saskatchewan, including here in Regina.”
“Obviously, you know, safe and high quality patient care is the priority here… great detail work was done, as I said, over the last 24 hours, working closely with the province of Manitoba to get Saskatchewan patients out.”
Cockrill said he also had a conversation with the mayor of Creighton last night.
“Creighton has also been evacuated. It's a scary time for a lot of northern residents. And you know, so certainly we'll be working closely with our partners at the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency, as well as all the local communities up there… if more people need to be moved out, we will figure out where they are going to go in the province. But I just, again, commend the work.”
As for the opposition New Democrats, they issued a joint statement last night from leader Carla Beck, Athabasca MLA Leroy Laliberte and Cumberland MLA Jordan McPhail. In that statement they called on the Premier and the Minister of Public Safety to “immediately declare a provincewide state of emergency and commit to daily public briefings to ensure all essential — potentially lifesaving — information reaches people impacted by this wildfire crisis in Saskatchewan’s North.”
“We have been attending meetings with leaders in the North for much of the day and they are unanimous in their calls for clear communication and support to ensure the safety of people fleeing from communities caught in the path of these fires.”
On Wednesday, NDP House Leader Nicole Sarauer was asked at the Legislature about the wildfire situation and she said communication was an issue.
“One concern we've heard throughout is a lack of communication from the province to those who are affected about what to do and what's happening. So, there is definitely a need for more transparency and more communication by the province to those affected,” Sarauer said.
She adds that there is “a definite need from our province to do a better job of communicating and frankly planning in advance for these situations. They're becoming more and more common, more frequent, more dangerous and happening earlier in the year.”
