The McDougall Creek Wildfire damaged or destroyed 189 properties in August.
Image Credit: Heather Reis, Submitted.
November 28, 2023 - 7:30 AM
With memories of last summer’s McDougall Creek wildfire in and around West Kelowna quickly fading, so too is the chance for a public airing of experiences and an opportunity to improve.
The wildfire was three months ago and it has been more than two months since West Kelowna city councillor Rick de Jong called for a public hearing to be held this fall so people impacted by the fire could share their experiences and try to heal.
After all that time, it looks like their only option will be an email or online portal to the province and that's not at all a sure thing.
“To me, this was of utmost importance,” de Jong told iNFOnews.ca, Nov. 27. “It had the unanimous support of all my colleagues, including my mayor. I would have expected things to have happened faster. I am disappointed that it has taken so long to get to this point.”
He's also disappointed that “this point” is really nowhere.
His motion to council in September called on the Regional District of Central Okanagan to review the regional emergency response and hold a public input session, separate from whatever the province was planning.
That took until Oct. 14 to get to his council and never made it to the regional district board. Instead, regional district chair and Kelowna city councillor Loyal Wooldridge wrote a letter back to West Kelowna dated Nov. 9 that didn’t get to a council meeting until Nov. 21.
“It could have been much faster,” de Jong said. “The regional district had it within their power to be way more nimble than they choose to be. That is a question for the regional board: why are they choosing to drag their feet on this? I don’t have an answer.”
Wooldridge in his letter to West Kelowna said the regional district “has made a formal request to the Ministry of Emergency Management and Climate Resiliency to identify an email or online platform for our communities to share their lived Emergency Support Services experiences directly with the province.”
Which is far different than what de Jong - and his entire council - called for.
“I find that is, perhaps, watering it down and preventing people from really sharing their stories in a meaningful fashion where they can have a hearing,” de Jong said.
Wooldridge told iNFOnews.ca in October he was concerned about “re-traumatizing” people in a public hearing setting and the review will only include the staff involved in the emergency.
“I don’t understand where Loyal Wooldridge is coming from when he says he’s concerned about causing more trauma. It doesn’t make sense to me because if you will be scarred by providing your story why would you even try to? This isn’t something that we’re forcing people to take part in.”
What the board is planning to do is to hire a third party “independent facilitator” to conduct “an after-action review which is a standard debrief process following an Emergency Operations Centre activation,” Wooldridge’s letter said.
READ MORE: McDougall Creek Wildfire: Public role in postmortem not likely
“While we’re moving away into recovery, now’s the time to do this,” de Jong said in September. “If we wait until December or January, memories aren’t going to be as fresh. From volunteers to workers to residents who were impacted, I do believe there’s some stories that need to be told. There’s some sharing that needs to happen as part of the healing process and as part of the learning process to understand better what happened – what happened well and didn’t happen well."
READ MORE: West Kelowna politician calls for public review of wildfire emergency operations
A consultant is expected to be hired by the end of this year to conduct the staff review starting in January. There is a provincial public input portal open until Jan. 31, here but nothing available locally.
“I would like to see this accelerated,” de Jong said. “I can’t believe it’s taken this long. It’s disappointing. Memories are fading.”
He's at a loss as to what to do next. He doesn't sit on the regional district board and has lobbied his fellow councillor members who do, Mayor Gord Milsom and councillor Stephen Johnston, but so far to no avail.
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