Premier says sorry to residents over NWT’s 2023 fire season

Premier RJ Simpson on Friday apologized for the experience of NWT residents during the wildfires and evacuations of summer 2023.

“I’m sorry to those residents who had terrible experiences. Many of us had bad experiences. We’re all coming to terms with it,” Simpson said when asked by Great Slave MLA Kate Reid if he would apologize for what residents endured.

Many thousands of people were forced from their homes, some for a month or more. Residents have documented financial loss, trauma and long-lasting impacts.

A full review of what happened in 2023, by an independent contractor, arrived earlier this month and contained dozens of recommendations.

Much of that report documented the confusion and lack of planning that many people who lived through that wildfire summer will immediately recognize.

“Will the premier acknowledge that the evacuation did not go right on many fronts, as outlined in the after-action review, and apologize to residents of the Northwest Territories?” Reid had asked.

Building up to that apology, Simpson said he agreed the collective trauma is “something that, as a territory, we have to come to grips with.”

“There were 12 communities evacuated a total of 14 times, so this is not just a Yellowknife evacuation issue. This was an issue around the Northwest Territories, and obviously there were many areas where things didn’t go well,” the premier said.

“I’ve been saying that since I stood up in this House and ran for premier. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to get into this House and into this role, is to address the deficiencies that I saw, that I experienced during that evacuation.”

Simpson was a minister at the time but not the premier. He took over from Caroline Cochrane following an election in late 2023 – an election itself delayed by the fires.

“With this after-action review, we’re going to make sure that we are implementing the recommendations based on the review that we’re doing of that report, because we want to make sure that what we saw – the deficiencies that happened – don’t happen again,” Simpson said. (The territory previously said it would not comment on the after-action review’s findings in any detail until a formal GNWT response is issued later in the summer.)

“I was an evacuee. My colleague from Hay River was a first responder,” said Simpson, referring to communities minister Vince McKay.

“We had completely different experiences and there are unique experiences across the territory. For some people, it was no big deal for them. Other people, it was devastating for them – and I feel for them.”

Reid also asked how the premier would address the concerns of members of the public service who “feel kind-of hollow” about what transpired and the response to date.

“There are some people in the public service who are emotionally scarred from this, and I hear the stories from across the public service of the work that was done. You know, heroic efforts,” said Simpson.

“You might not have been on the front lines, you might have been in an office, you might have been in a hotel room with three kids and two dogs. That doesn’t mean your efforts weren’t heroic. So I completely recognize that, and I appreciate the work done by the public service during an unprecedented time.

“It’s clear that we were not prepared for a disaster on the scale of which we’ve never seen in the Northwest Territories. We don’t have a standing army to respond to these things. What we’re doing now is we’re taking steps to ensure that we don’t put public servants in those positions again.”