NDP BURNS ITSELF ON REPORTS
Sitting on wildfire findings only made it worse: Graham Thomson
The devastating Fort McMurray wildfire that produced so much confusion in the Alberta government last year is still creating some chaos 13 months later.
This time the chaos is political, and self-inflicted.
The fire went from nuisance to calamity in a matter of hours, initially overstretching the ability of officials both local and provincial to react efficiently.
The highs and lows of the response to the largest natural disaster in Canadian history are spelled out in two reports hurriedly released by the provincial government Thursday evening.
The government had planned to make the reports public next Tuesday, but the best laid plans of mice and government are often overturned by reporters — in this case by the CBC, which leaked one of the reports Thursday afternoon.
The CBC’s online story came with the less-than-flattering headline: “Poor co-ordination and communication hindered battle with Fort McMurray wildfire” — and went on to itemize serious problems with communications between provincial officials and local firefighters.
Albertans “can expect similar or worse outcomes on a more frequent basis,” said the report by consulting firm MNP, unless all levels of government are better prepared.
This was not the story the government was hoping for, especially when the other report by consulting firm KPMG seemed much less critical and even pointed to things that worked well (especially how Fort McMurray residents helped each other evacuate the city).
The government’s press people had been so hoping for a civilized, nuanced news conference next Tuesday when they could have massaged the message.
But Thursday night, faced with a less-than-positive media leak, the press people launched into frantic damage-control action.
If you’ve ever seen a running dog try to change direction on a linoleum floor, you have a pretty good idea how it looked.
Amusing, perhaps, but not a pretty sight.
Officials quickly arranged a stop-gap background briefing with government bureaucrats followed by a news conference with two cabinet ministers — Agriculture and Forestry Minister Oneil Carlier and Municipal Affairs Minister Shaye Anderson.
That’s when things began to go off the rails. Journalists realized the government had been sitting on the reports.
The MNP report had been delivered to the government on March 22, the KPMG document on May 20.
Why hadn’t they been released earlier, especially the MNP report?
“In consideration of the people of Fort McMurray, we didn’t want to time the release of them close to the date of the anniversary of the fire, which we think would have made some people anxious,” said Carlier in a statement that sounded more than a tad condescending.
Carlier and Anderson said they had wanted time to demonstrate how the government was responding to the reports’ 31 recommendations.
However, a skeptic could surmise the government sat on the reports until the spring sitting of the legislature was safely over and cabinet ministers wouldn’t be subject to daily questioning by the opposition.
Supporting that supposition is the fact Premier Rachel Notley said May 3 during a speech on the fire’s one-year anniversary that the reports were not ready — “They’re not complete as of yet, but we expect that they will be in about two to four weeks.”
The fact is that on May 3, the less-than-flattering MNP report had been ready for six weeks.
Wildrose Leader Brian Jean has jumped on the government’s foot-dragging as proof of something nefarious.
“The fact the government held onto these reports for months to try and whitewash their findings has only further eroded the trust of the people of Fort McMurray.”
Jean, who happens to be one of Fort McMurray’s two MLAs, is demanding a public inquiry into the fire.
That’s not going to happen. The government wants to put the confusion of the wildfire — and the chaos evident in Thursday’s news conference — behind it.