Tough questions for Alberta premier on Fort McMurray rebuild

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley’s tour of Fort McMurray came with some tough questions Wednesday.
The questions centered around criticism on why it was taking the province so long to rebuild.

Reporters questioned her about the mounting criticism she’s faced from both residents and members of the opposition, more notably Wildrose leader Brian Jean.

“I think we’ve been working as collaboratively as we can with all the levels of government that are responsible for getting this process forward and all along we’ve been balancing safety with progress,” she said. “Certainly we’ve been taking advice from people on the ground as well as experts and so I think we struck the right balance. We pushed to get people back as quickly as we could while understanding that we needed to have a safe place for them to return to.”

Notley says her government has announced a review of the response and they’ll have to see what comes through this but they’ll try to get better as it goes along.

“We still are working with the municipality as they make the decisions they need to and as they indicated they’re ahead of schedule.”

The premier says it’s a big project in trying to rebuild this many houses at once and they’ll continue to problem solve with the players on the local level.

The latest population estimate has the number of people at about 10,000, which is lower than what it was pre-fire.

“I’m actually encouraged by the number of people who have come back because it’s actually higher than what our experts told us what we could expect.”

The premier remarked about the level of activity on the streets.

She told reporters it was inspiring to witness a home that was almost ready to be re-occupied and while she conceded not everyone is in that position, she calls it the goal that people are shooting for and adds it’s achievable.

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