Public Security Minister Geneviève Guilbault said the government is doubling down on efforts to help Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac flood victims as quickly as possible before the winter comes.
Guilbault held a press conference on Monday, accompanied by Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac mayor Sonia Paulus and Canadian Red Cross Quebec vice-president Pascal Mathieu.
Six months after a dike breach flooded the town and forced 6,000 people out of their homes, Guilbault said she is “perfectly aware of the distress” still very much present in the community.
READ MORE: Ste-Marthe-sur-le-Lac residents upset over new dike construction, say mayor has mismanaged it
The Quebec government had said people who were forced to move were eligible to get $200,000 in compensation and those who just required repairs to their homes were eligible for an amount dependent on their renovation estimate.
Eighty per cent of the flood victims, however, have not received the financial assistance promised to them by the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government in full.
The public safety minister said their doubling-down efforts will include deploying more people on the ground to help residents in need, but remained vague on those specifics.
She also said they are processing compensation claims much faster thanks to their reformed compensation program, which she said aims to be “more flexible, more human and more efficient.”
She claimed they are processing 20 times more files than the Liberal government did during the 2017 Quebec floods.
Some residents of the town, however, are not at all happy with the support they have received from the CAQ.
They accuse the government of trying to make it seem like the aid and repairs offered to the community are sufficient and running smoothly, but residents say they are not.
Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac resident Laura McGuigan said there have been deaths by suicide among residents who have lost everything, but they aren’t getting spoken about.
“People are at their wits’ end. They don’t know what to do, they don’t know where to go, they end up with nothing,” she said.
“They’ve lost homes, they’ve lost businesses, they’ve lost everything.”
When asked about the deaths, Mathieu said the Red Cross could not comment.
— With files from La Presse Canadienne
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