Denise O’Connor and other residents of Lytton, B.C., say they were not impressed with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s national statement at the COP26 climate summit.
On November 1, Trudeau referred to the fire that destroyed the small village in the Fraser Valley over the summer to illustrate the impact of climate change.
“In Canada, there was a town called Lytton. I say “was” because on June 30 it burned to the ground. The day before, the temperature had reached 49.6 C, the hottest ever recorded in our country. Canada is warming, on average, twice as fast as the rest of the world. “
“The science is clear: we need to do more and faster,” Trudeau said.
Lytton, a village of less than 300 inhabitants before the fire, is currently under reconstruction. Last month, the city government unveiled its Lytton short-term recovery plan, which includes temporary emergency housing for returning residents.
Two days after Trudeau’s speech, O’Connor and other members of the Lytton Chamber of Commerce business resumption steering committee sent him a letter expressing their frustration.
“Hearing you, Prime Minister, refer to our city in the past… breaks our hearts,” they said in the letter. “The town of Lytton still exists – it exists in the hearts and minds of every resident and every business.”
Committee members also complained about what they say is Ottawa’s lack of support for Lytton.
“We were treated as non-existent – we saw no help from the federal government to help us get home.”
O’Connor, who lost his home in the fire, says Lytton received provincial support for the reconstruction, but none from Ottawa.
“He [Trudeau] uses our name, and yet we haven’t seen anything from the federal government regarding support, ”O’Connor said Tuesday to host Sarah Penton on the CBC show Radio West.
“We just heard last night [on Nov. 8] … That we’re not going to have a post office – they’re not coming back yet. “
In an emailed statement to CBC, the Prime Minister’s Office did not respond to the chamber’s complaint about Trudeau’s description of Lytton, but said the federal government matched every dollar donated to the BC Wildfires Appeal Fund of the Canadian Red Cross and will provide additional assistance if needed.
O’Connor is also disputing what Trudeau said was the cause of the fire that ravaged Lytton.
“Climate change did not start the fire in Lytton,” she said. “We have had [that] save heat. We had strong winds and a spark coming from the train – and that’s what started the fire, not the climate change. “
But on October 14, investigators from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada said they had found no evidence that trains traveling near Lytton were responsible for the blaze.
O’Connor now lives in his parents’ house in Lytton, which was not damaged by the fire.
“Lytton is not an ‘was’. There are still over 30 houses here with people living there, ”she said. “There are still so many people here, and that’s what the community is. It’s not a ‘was’.”
READ | Letter from the Lytton Chamber of Commerce to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on November 3
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