An evacuation in the northern Ontario community of Kashechewan has expanded, forcing hundreds of residents of the First Nations reserve to leave their homes due to widespread flooding.
Emergency Management Ontario said Tuesday more than 900 Kashechewan residents have been evacuated as local leaders continue to monitor the Albany River to determine if anyone else will need to be taken out of the region.
The large-scale evacuation promoted one Ontario MPP to suggest Tuesday that the First Nation communities in the flood-plagued James Bay region should be permanently re-located to higher ground.
"For years, we've been spending a lot of money moving people, flying them out every time there's a flood," New Democrat Gilles Bisson, whose riding includes Kashechewan, told The Canadian Press.
"It just seems to me that if we just keep on evacuating every spring and every summer, we repair the damages from each flood, we're just spending literally millions of dollars every year and not really finding a longer-term solution as far as permanency goes for those communities," he said.
A number of planes filled with about 350 evacuees arrived in Cornwall, Ont., on Monday, where residents displaced from their homes are expected to remain for at least two weeks.
Others have been airlifted out of Kashechewan to Kapuskasing, Thunder Bay and Greenstone.
Cornwall Mayor Bob Kilger said the evacuees will be living in the NAV Centre, a 600-room facility that has previously housed evacuees from the same northern community.
The building was constructed about 30 years ago as a training facility for air-traffic controllers.
“It lends itself well to this type of situation for the residents of Kashechewan,” Kilger told CTV’s Canada AM on Tuesday.
Kilger said the residents of the nearby Akwesasne reserve are helping evacuees settle in Cornwall by providing spiritual and recreational services.
“We have a relatively, if I can say, ideal situation in what is a difficult time of need for the Kashechewan people,” Kilger said.
Thunder Bay is housing about 150 evacuees from the James Bay community, who landed in the city on Monday.
Mayor Keith Hobbs said taking in the evacuees was a “no brainer.”
“In Thunder Bay, about one-fifth of our population are aboriginal residents,” he told CTV News Channel on Monday. “We are a capital city for the First Nations in the North.”
Last week, 240 Kashechewan residents were evacuated after flooding caused sewer backups in homes, while in the nearby in the town of Moosonee, some 250 residents were evacuated over the weekend because of flooding concerns.
Meanwhile, officials continue to monitor water levels in the troubled First Nation of Attawpiskat.
The northern Ontario communities declared a state of emergency last week after fast-melting snow raised flood concerns.
Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources said Monday afternoon that a number of rivers in the province’s north continue to see ice break-up, forcing waters above flood levels.
Flooding risk eases in Prairies
While the rapid spring melt caused water levels to spike in the Prairie provinces, officials say flood risks in Manitoba and Saskatchewan have started to ease.
The latest flood bulletin issued by the Manitoba government notes that flood warnings remain in effect for the Assiniboine Rover from St. Lazare to Brandon, where high waters are expected to mainly affect agriculture land.
“While water levels remain high in some regions, flood risks are easing in many areas of the province,” the bulletin reads.
In Saskatchewan, officials said Monday water levels on a number of communities have receded, diminishing the threat of flooding.
However, 13 communities in the province remain under a state of emergency. A small number of residents in Maidstone and Borden, and the Muscowpetung, Poundmaker and Onion Lake First Nations remain out of their homes due to flooding.
With files from The Canadian Press
