Many residents in Tweed are still looking for answers and relief from the tornado that hit the area in July.
Last week, the Municipality of Tweed held a special council meeting to give residents affected by the July tornado a chance to speak on how it affected them and why help is still needed to clean up the damage.
The MPP for the area was directly asked about why cleanup has been slow for Tweed on Wednesday.
Speaking on The Lorne Brooker show on 800 CJBQ, Hastings – Lennox and Addington MPP Ric Bresee explains one of the reasons for the delay in the cleanup.
“The programs that we have, the disaster relief program, it’s all about people’s houses … if there’s damage to their houses caused by this, and it’s not covered by insurance, and if it is a principal home, not secondary or about businesses,” Bresee explained on The Lorne Brooker Show.
“So that program is there, but it didn’t add up to the cumulative requirement to activate the program through the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.”
Bresee says a lot of the damaged homes are on private land and there is no program in place to help those homes.
“We don’t have a program for private lands cleanup and most of the area around Tweed is actually on private lands, most of the damage is on private lands,” Bresee explained.
“So I’ve been working with the Minister, working with the bureaucrats in the ministry. We’ve got to come up with a new program. Unfortunately that will take time. We don’t have a good answer on that yet.”
During the special council meeting, Tweed Mayor Don DeGenova said invitations were sent out to the provincial and federal members of government that represent the riding that Tweed resides.
No government representatives were in attendance during that meeting
Bresee countered that claim, saying that neither he nor his federal counterpart received an invitation.
“The mayor was planning on receiving that information from his residents and then providing it to both the federal and provincial levels. That was the plan all along as we understood it,” Bresee said.
When asked if he would have attended the meeting if he received the invitation, Bresee said if he did receive one and if his schedule would have allowed it, he would have.
Bresee said the last time he spoke with the mayor was on November 8 to discuss how to move the programs forward.
