Peggy Savery plays cards with her husband Lloyd at her new table in a sun-drenched kitchen. The family is still settling into their new home in Port aux Basques, bought and furnished by a hodgepodge of donations and disaster relief funding.
Their old house, the one destroyed by a storm surge during post-tropical storm Fiona, was covered, she says, estimating the family paid their insurance company about $60,000 to protect their most valuable asset.
But when disaster struck last September, all of the Saverys’ claims were denied; damage from seawater wasn’t included in their premiums.
“They didn’t give us a dime,” she said.
The Saverys are among 102 households in Port aux Basques and surrounding communities that were destroyed by Fiona whose insurance companies refused to pay out for damages from the storm.
Peggy Savery was able to buy a home at a below-market cost thanks to a kind neighbour in Port aux Basques. Without an insurance payout, she says, she would have had to move away. (Malone Mullin/CBC)
Most were left homeless, with nowhere to turn and forced to depend on government aid to rebuild their homes or buy again. The Newfoundland and Labrador government paid out $41 million to Fiona’s victims after a lengthy application and assessment process to fill the void left by insurers.
Denise Pike Anderson was forced to downsize and move to nearby Cape Ray.
Had her insurance paid out, she would’ve been able to rebuild, she said. Instead, her company told her she needed special surge protection — something almost no insurers currently offer.
“The insurance [companies] should be grateful to the government,” she said. “I really believe that we need stricter laws.”
Ottawa to underwrite new flood program
About 1.5 million Canadians live in a flood plain or low-lying coastal community, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada.
With increasing risk from climate change, a collection of insurance companies and the federal government are hammering out a deal to offer flood insurance to homeowners in those areas, says Craig Stewart, a vice-president with the bureau.
This is why insurance companies refused to pay for houses lost to Fiona
Newfoundlanders who lost their home to the most powerful storm to make landfall in Atlantic Canada say insurers didn’t pay out a cent when their homes were destroyed in September 2022. But an insurance expert says there’s a solution on the horizon for future flood victims.
“Insurance is designed for accidents, and when people live in flood plains or in low-lying coastal communities … we know they’re going to flood at some point, and it’s no longer an accident,” Stewart told CBC News. “That’s why insurance isn’t a good fit, and why we’ve been pursuing another solution for those people.”
The federal government will underwrite that insurance, with capped premiums available for people in at-risk areas, Stewart said.
“Right now we essentially have two solutions: we have government-backed disaster assistance, which is essentially free insurance paid for by the taxpayer, and then you’ve got an insurance market which won’t cover those at high risk,” he said. “Neither is optimal.”
Fiona’s wrath in Newfoundland prompted Ottawa to include storm surge coverage in its national flood program, he said, adding it’s expected to roll out in 2025.
A look from inside Savery’s new home, which features a small sign that reads ‘Stronger Than the Storm.’ (Brianna Gosse/CBC)
Peggy Savery, meanwhile, has been busy replenishing what the family lost, trucking in furniture from Stephenville and decorating with whatever she’s salvaged from the rubble left by Fiona.
These days she’s focused on the future, grateful her new home’s previous owner offered the house to her family at a below-market price.
Without that act of kindness, she suspects they would have moved away.
“Had the insurance company done what they should have done, it never would have been an issue for us,” she said.
“When you see the insurance companies raking in millions and billions of dollars and not paying out, it just doesn’t seem fair that the government has to bail us out.”
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
