Yellowknife residents have been ordered to begin evacuating the city immediately as wildfires approach, N.W.T. officials said Wednesday evening.
While the city is not in immediate danger, Environment Minister Shane Thompson said a “phased approach” to evacuating will allow citizens to get out safely by car or by plane.
The evacuation order says residents should leave “according to risk.” People living along Ingraham Trail, in Dettah, and the Kam Lake, Grace Lake and the Engle business district in Yellowknife are considered at highest risk and are urged to leave as soon as possible.
Other residents of Yellowknife and Ndilo should leave by noon Friday.
“The fire now represents a real threat to the city,” Thompson said at a news conference Wednesday evening, adding it could reach the outskirts of the city by the weekend. The fire was about 17 kilometres from the city on Wednesday, he said.
Heavy smoke from nearby wildfires fills the sky in Yellowknife on Tuesday. On Wednesday evening, territorial officials announced a city-wide evacuation order. (Angela Gzowski/The Canadian Press)
Fire information officer Mike Westwick said fire could reach the Ingraham trail by Friday.
The extraordinary evacuation order affects nearly 22,000 people.
It comes after days of reassurance from the city’s mayor, Rebecca Alty, that there was no immediate danger or need for the city to share details of its evacuation planning, and well after many people began to leave and businesses and other operations, including city recreation facilities and the dump, began to close.
Highway safe to drive
Thompson said Wednesday that the highway from Yellowknife to Alberta is safe to drive. People are being urged to fill up their vehicles before leaving Yellowknife, but he said the Department of Infrastructure will have a tanker full of gas along the route, and tow trucks will also be out in force.
“At Big River [Service Centre], they have informed us they have a lot of gas available and they will have other gas brought in Friday,” said Thompson.
Pilot vehicles will also be on the highway to escort evacuees through smoky areas in the fire zone.
“The window of opportunity right now is going to allow us to evacuate everybody safely,” Thompson said, adding, “we need you to do it now,” because the fire threatens both air and road access.
The N.W.T. government has ordered residents to leave in phases by noon on Friday, which will give people the opportunity to leave safely by car or plane. (Angela Gzowski/The Canadian Press)
No evacuation reception centres have been established yet. People with family or friends are encouraged to make use of the resources available to them.
Travellers can find the latest highway updates on the N.W.T. government’s Facebook page, as the highway conditions website has been experiencing technical difficulties.
Those without vehicles were urged to present themselves at the Multiplex in Yellowknife, where the city intends to establish a reception centre for those fleeing the Ingraham Trail and Dettah.
Air evacuations to begin Thursday
People who cannot leave by road, and residents who are immunocompromised or have other conditions that put them at higher risk, are asked to register for evacuation flights. Air evacuations are scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. Thursday.
Air evacuees are being advised to go to Sir John Franklin High School in Yellowknife, with standard carry-on baggage only, after 10 a.m. Thursday. Pets will be allowed on commercial carriers, but must be crated. On military aircraft, pets should be crated if possible.
Evacuees are urged to not leave by boat to a cabin or island on Great Slave Lake.
Thompson also said plans were in the works to help people experiencing homelessness.
Unprecedented situation
The minister reiterated that despite the incredible fire conditions and the number of evacuees from multiple N.W.T. communities, no fatalities have been reported due to fire, with the exception of firefighter Adam Yeadon.
Premier Caroline Cochrane ended Wednesday’s news briefing by once again calling the situation unprecedented.
“There’s no other way to describe it,” she said.
Yellowknife and surrounding communities now join Fort Smith, Hay River, the Kátł’odeeche First Nation, Enterprise and Jean Marie River — all N.W.T. communities which have seen residents displaced due to out of control fires.
Cochrane also reiterated her plea for everyone who can leave to do so immediately.
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.
