Yellowknife city council greenlights independent review of wildfire response

Yellowknife city council unanimously approved a proposal yesterday to review the city's response to this summer's wildfires. 

"It's not a surprise that it comes unanimously," said mayor Rebecca Alty. "I think we all want to see what worked, what didn't and recommendations so that in the future we can make sure that our emergency preparedness as robust as possible."

The assessment would look at the success and failures of the city with regards to  how it handled the wildfires and evacuation. 

The assessment regarding the North Slave fire complex would aim to answer questions regarding what was expected to happen, what went well and what could be improved on. It would look at things like the city's financial ability to deal with disasters, its existing framework to deal with emergency preparedness, and its use of volunteers. 

The current budget for the project is $150,000 but that number could go up or down depending on the proposals that come in. 

Stakeholders for the assessment include the public, private industry, essential workers and volunteers. 

Council approved staff to issue a request for proposals to get bids from third parties who would do the review. 

The work itself is set to begin in December and should be completed by the end of June. The review will include public engagement.

Mayor Alty said the review is just meant to look at what worked, what didn't work and what could be improved for next time.  

"Future mayors, future counselors, future staff that … can turn to this document and be like 'What happened? What were the lessons learned? Have we implemented the lessons learned?'" she said. 

In a committee meeting on the same day, Coun. Tom McLennan said he wanted to see specific costing to update the evacuation framework., in order to start rebuilding trust with the public.

He also wanted to see work done prior to the results of the assessment so that the public would see that concrete steps were being taken ahead of next fire season. 

"We need to start showing action and that things are happening and to have deliverables before then," he said. 

Mayor Alty did not support that motion. She said the budget would not be finalized until February, and none of the work involved would be able to start until after then, which would already be very close to the next fire season. 

'Terrifying' city budget delayed 

A committee meeting earlier on Tuesday revealed that Yellowknife's budget will be published two months later than expected — in mid-February — due to delays caused by the evacuation. 

Coun. Cat McGurk said that communicating what the budget is going to look like to the public is important. 

"It's going to look terrifying this year," she said. 

Alty said last year the budget anticipated a 10.45 per cent tax increase in 2024 and the current calculation shows that for every 350,000 increase in next year's budget will cause a one per cent increase in property tax. 

 "We should be preparing people for the reality that it's going to be a very different year," said McGurk.