Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 29, 2024, Winnipeg, Manitoba SE T T E R S T CARON AVE L O N S D A L E D R H A L L O N Q U I S T D R B O O T H D R S T U R G E O N R O A D S T U R G E O N R O A D GRACE HOSPITAL SC II P O R T A G E A V E N U E SC I Sturgeon Creek I Sturgeon Creek II Beautiful 1 Bedroom Suite Call Santana at 204.202.1870 NOW AVAILABLE Call Today! Gracious Retirement Living Assisted Living A Place to Call Home At Your Service: • Transportation for Scheduled Outings and Medical Appointments • 24 Hour Nursing Care • Weekly Light Housekeeping • Staff 24/7 • Pet Friendly • Enriched Activities • Secure Residence • Delicious, Home-Cooked Meals • Month to Month Leases 707 Setter Street, Winnipeg, MB Where Caring is Our Number One Concern™ PROUDLY CANADIAN www.allseniorscare.com Do you need to suspend your newspaper for the Terry Fox long weekend? Please notify our office of your vacation request by Wednesday, July 31, 2024 before 10:00 am. To continue receiving our digital content, donate your print subscription to our hospital program. For more information or to notify us of your change of delivery please call: 204-697-7001 or 1-800-542-8900 You can also send your vacation request with the same deadline by email to: fpcirc@freepress.mb.ca HOME DELIVERY CUSTOMER SERVICE NOTICE There is no print publication Monday, August 5, 2024. WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM ● A5 NEWS I CANADA MONDAY, JULY 29, 2024 Rotting food, closed highways a concern in Jasper E DMONTON — Parks Canada says it realizes wildfire evacuees from Jasper worry about what rotting food will do to their homes and that others wonder when a critical highway through the national park will reopen, but it says the blaze continues to burn out of control and remains a threat to the town. A statement from the federal agency on Sunday said requests have poured in from people asking for help in retriev- ing important personal items or to re- move food, fridges and freezers. The statement said that while hot spots in the town have been extin- guished, resources are tied up in pro- tecting the community from the re- maining wildfire risks in the park that surrounds it and the requests cannot be accommodated. “Rotting food in fridges and freezers without power can unfortunately re- sult in contamination to homes. We’re aware of this, and are working to re- store power to as much of the townsite as possible in order to minimize this risk,” Parks Canada said in the state- ment, released on Sunday. “This is the largest wildfire record- ed in Jasper National Park in the last 100 years and ensuring that residents and visitors are safe to return will take time.” The statement also noted incident staff are working on a plan to reopen Highway 16, a critical east-west route that runs through the park and town- site, as well as Icefields Parkway 93N. But it said there is no timeline for that yet. “We know that many people were forced to leave their belongings, trail- ers or campers behind in the camp- grounds during the evacuation. Doing so was critical in the successful evacu- ation of Jasper National Park,” the statement said. The town’s website said 15 pets have been rescued so far, noting last week’s evacuation happened so fast that many residents were unable to return home before fleeing. It said the SPCA in the nearby town of Hinton donated their van, pet food and is providing shelter until the animals can be reunited with their families. Over 20,000 people in and around the town nestled in the Rocky Mountains four hours west of Edmonton were or- dered to evacuate last Monday due to fast-moving wildfires. Parks Canada has estimated 30 per cent of Jasper township’s structures were damaged and a map of the town indicating which properties suffered damage was released on Saturday afternoon. The map is giving residents a bet- ter picture of what’s still standing and what isn’t, but a town official has cau- tioned it’s based only on what can be seen from the street. Additional information on what’s been damaged outside the town is underway, Parks Canada said, and firefighters are working to protect homes and other ac- commodations in those outlying areas. Jasper National Park remains closed and RCMP are ensuring the town is se- cure, Parks Canada said, noting there are checkpoints to keep people out. “Patrols are ensuring that no un- authorized access to the community is occurring. Any unauthorized people found in the community will be subject to arrest,” Parks Canada said. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, along with Jasper Mayor Richard Ire- land and other dignitaries, toured the evacuated town on Friday, where they passed the charred remains of the home where Ireland himself grew up. A Parks Canada official said Satur- day the fire could burn for months. Evacuees from Jasper learned Sun- day the Alberta and federal govern- ments will provide additional money for relief, with both saying they’ll match donations to the Canadian Red Cross 2024 Alberta Wildfires Appeal. Federal Emergency Preparedness Minister Harjit Sajjan and Alberta Public Safety and Emergency Services Minister Mike Ellis said in a joint news release that the donation-matching in- itiative means every $1 donated will be- come $3 to support people most impact- ed by wildfires in Jasper and across the province. It will last for 30 days, retroactive to when the fundraising campaign first opened on Thursday. Extra help to fight the fires in Jas- per and other parts of Alberta has also been arriving. The Canadian military tweeted photos Sunday of soldiers in Hinton, where it said they were under- going “firefighter refresher training” led by the local fire department. Forty Quebec forest firefighters also flew to Edmonton on Sunday ahead of a two-week mission in the field. More support from Ontario, Australia and South Africa was expected to arrive Sunday, the province has said. Elsewhere in Alberta, the province said Sunday that rain helped firefight- ers extinguish nearly 50 wildfires in the previous 48 hours and another 17 wildfires are no longer out of control. The province said the Municipal Dis- trict of Bighorn’s evacuation order for the area east of Highway 40 and west of the Ghost Public Land Access Point remains in effect. Evacuation orders for Little Red River Cree Nation, which includes the communities of John D’or Prairie, Fox Lake and Garden River, also remain in effect and the Municipal District of Opportunity’s evacuation or- der for Chipewyan Lake is still in place. — The Canadian Press Evacuation of wildfire-ravaged community nears second week Protesters worry Quebec is complicating access to health care in English MONTREAL — Several dozen pro- testers gathered in front of a Montreal hospital on Saturday afternoon to pro- test Quebec’s French language reform law as anxieties deepen over the ability to access health-care services in lan- guages other than French. Mario Napolitano was one of the Bill 96 opponents demonstrating in front of Santa Cabrini Hospital. As one of the city’s health-care institutions that has bilingual recognition in the province, it is permitted to offer both signage and documents in Italian as well as French. Sporting a T-shirt that read “English is a crime in Quebec,” Napolitano said he has been in touch with staff who feel they were pestered about the use of English by Quebec language watchdog staff when they visited the hospital ear- lier this week. “It’s too much. The hospital is a place of healing,” he said in an interview be- fore the protest. “We don’t find Bill 96 is protecting the French language. We find that it’s attacking the English lan- guage.” The Office québécois de la langue française issued a statement disputing both its conduct and mandate. It said the recent hospital visit was part of rou- tine procedures to ensure health-care facilities are complying with the prov- ince’s French language charter, adding staff do not impede patients’ ability to access care in languages other than French. “These visits, carried out by a fran- cization adviser, do not in any way in- terrupt medical tasks, nor are they in- tended to analyze private conversations between staff members,” reads the statement issued on Friday. Meanwhile, the regional health au- thority that oversees Santa-Cabrini says that it, like all other health facili- ties in its network, have been “subject to the French language charter for dec- ades, and nothing has been done differ- ently” since Bill 96 — a sweeping over- haul of the province’s language laws — was passed in 2022. But community groups advocating for the rights of Quebec anglophones are not consoled by these explanations, which come as the province continues adopting provisions of Bill 96. They warn the government is making it hard- er for Quebecers to access health-care services in English and their concerns grew last week after the provincial health ministry published a directive spelling out the exceptional circum- stances in which health-care workers are allowed to communicate in lan- guages other than French. The directive specifies that French must be used first in all situations. Other languages will be permissible only in emergency situations, such as is when a person’s health may be com- promised or when a patient cannot give their consent or participate in their own treatment. The directive provides multiple examples. In one, a 14-year-old girl arrives to get an abortion and is ac- companied by an aunt who does not understand French. A checklist in her language is permitted to ensure the girl follows the right procedure after the operation. Another example sees a Span- ish-speaking woman arriving at an ER and unable to express the reason for her visit. A health-care worker is al- lowed to speak to the woman in Span- ish. In another, an English-speaking father comes to the hospital with his French-speaking son who needs an im- mediate medical intervention. Health- care workers are permitted to get the father’s consent in English. Sylvia Martin-Laforge, director gen- eral of Quebec Community Groups Network, said the new directives are amplifying fears about the kinds of ser- vice anglophones and allophones will be able to receive and putting the onus on health-care workers to determine who should be eligible for care in their language of choice. “This causes anxiety,” she said in an interview on Friday. Eric Maldoff, a lawyer and founder of the Coalition for Quality Health and Social Services, said on Friday that the law undermines the quality of care anglophones and allophones will be able to receive. He argued language should take a back seat, adding the province’s dir- ective will create a climate in which health-care workers will have to con- sider language laws instead of focusing on providing the best possible care. “Am I allowed to communicate with them in another language? Will I face sanctions if I communicate in another language? That kind of hesitation, … depending on the circumstance, … can mean adverse consequences for the person seeking services,” he said. — The Canadian Press JOE BONGIORNO ;