Lets get on with wildfire rebuilding, Jean urges

Wildrose Leader Brian Jean is calling on the government to put in some long days at the office to clear the way for the final Fort McMurray residents to start rebuilding their homes.

“We work shift work to produce oil; why can’t everyone else work shift work to get us back in our homes?” Jean said in a phone interview Tuesday from Fort McMurray.

Jean said the long wait is “re-victimizing” people who were most affected by the wildfire that swept through the region in May.

“The Alberta Chief Medical Officer needs to give an all-clear before any reconstruction can begin in the three most burned-out neighbourhoods. That’s unheard of,” he said.

The medical officer’s “recommendations on re-entry were put in place to protect residents from potential harm,” and the provincial government is working with the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo to finalize a re-entry and mitigation plan, Carolyn Ziegler, a spokeswoman for Alberta Health, said in an emailed statement.

Residents will be allowed to rebuild “as soon as it is safe to do so,” Ziegler said.

Jean said five of his family members lost their houses, and his nephew’s experience with the rebuilding process was so cumbersome that it deterred others.

“There’s 10,000 people who don’t have a home right now. They’re in temporary housing waiting to rebuild on the place they want to live and feel is their home. Give us the all clear,” Jean said.

Jean said he had just come from his own house, which burned down in the fire, and it was “very upsetting” that people can’t rebuild yet.