Premier Wab Kinew indicated Tuesday the province is changing its rules to provide disaster financial assistance to flood-hit rural Manitobans, but Winnipeg residents may be out of luck.
Kinew suggested flood victims should ignore terms published on the government’s website and disaster financial assistance application forms that state insurable damages are not eligible for provincial aid.
“If you have somebody who’s lived in a community for eight or nine decades and they’ve never seen this kind of flooding, it’s reasonable to expect that folks in that area wouldn’t put up flood protection or they wouldn’t purchase overland flood insurance,” he told reporters at an unrelated event in Selkirk.
A pickup trucks sits partially submerged in floodwaters along Highway 83 south of Swan River last week after sustained rainfall caused widespread flooding. (Tim Smith / The Brandon Sun files)
“Because of that reality of a changing climate bringing forward impacts we’ve never seen in certain parts of the province before, that’s why we’re looking at ensuring this DFA program is going to be there for people so that no one in rural Manitoba gets left behind, and we’re not going to let the rules as posted on the website stand in the way of doing the right thing.”
Several municipalities declared local states of emergency after torrential rain led to widespread flooding last week. Winnipeg was not among them. The city received dozens of reports of clean water or raw sewage backups, or flooded basements.
“My understanding is they need to declare a state of emergency,” Kinew said of Winnipeg’s eligibility for the program.
Some flood victims or municipal officials were confused after hearing or reading Kinew’s comments during a tour of flood-affected areas in Stonewall last week, when he pledged that financial assistance will be available and no one in rural Manitoba will be left behind.
The confusion stemmed from the fact that despite Kinew’s pledge, the program’s website and application form said insurable damages were not eligible.
A provincial regulation states that an expense is not eligible for disaster financial assistance if adequate insurance to cover the expense was available for purchase in the impacted region or community.
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Kinew said his government is working with the Manitoba Emergency Management Organization to “codify” the new approach.
The website and application forms contained “boilerplate language” when the program was launched Thursday, he added.
“I want to reassure people, yeah, this is going to look different than how it has in the past,” he said.
— with files from Nicole Buffie
chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca
Chris Kitching is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He began his newspaper career in 2001, with stops in Winnipeg, Toronto and London, England, along the way. After returning to Winnipeg, he joined the Free Press in 2021, and now covers a little bit of everything for the newspaper. Read more about Chris.
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