Yellowknife long-term care home seeking gov't reimbursement for 2023 evacuation costs

Jocelyn Shepel · CBC News

· Posted: Jun 03, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 9 minutes ago

A Yellowknife seniors' attraction location is inactive successful indebtedness from the 2023 wildfire evacuation and says the N.W.T. authorities should assistance wage it off. 

AVENS, a not-for-profit enactment that provides autarkic surviving and semipermanent attraction for seniors, moved 57 residents from its installation during the evacuation, racking up a measure of much than $1.3 million. Around $900,000 of those costs person been reimbursed by the national government, and successful a quality merchandise past week AVENS said it wants the territory to wage the rest.

AVENS CEO Daryl Dolynny says the debt has forced the enactment to instrumentality retired a 2nd owe connected 1 of its properties successful bid to support immoderate cashflow.

"This has been gravely overlooked for acold excessively long," said Dolynny.

Dolynny said that the enactment was severely short-staffed during the evacuation. About a 4th of the unit was connected manus to find space for its clients — positive the other clients the territory enactment successful its attraction — successful Edmonton, without guidance from the territory.

He said the territory placed evacuees from Hay River and Fort Smith successful AVENS' care days earlier Yellowknife's evacuation, and up until the time of.

"To beryllium successful a presumption wherever we really acquired different seniors and elders with terrible cases of dementia… We did the close happening and we would bash it again. All we're asking is, wage for the just and tenable outgo that it took america to negociate this," Dolynny said.

Being short-staffed meant the enactment developed an inducement programme to wage unit members other during the evacuation, according to Dolynny. 

AVENS's quality merchandise besides notes that it provides attraction nether contracts with Northwest Territories Health and Social Services Authority (NTHSSA), and that those contracts are lone for providing services astatine the AVENS facility successful Yellowknife. It says the deficiency of guidance during the evacuation made an already complicated concern adjacent much so.

NTHSSA says costs can't beryllium covered

In an email, NTHSSA spokesperson Krystal Pidborochynski said the costs AVENS is trying to assertion doesn't conscionable the standard for reimbursement nether the territorial catastrophe assistance policy. 

"While incremental staffing costs specified arsenic overtime oregon hiring further unit whitethorn suffice arsenic disaster-related expenses, inducement payments are ineligible arsenic a disaster-related expense," Pidborochynski said.

Dolynny said his organization has had the indebtedness validated and audited "more times than helium tin count." He besides said that not seeing these issues addressed successful the territory's latest after-action reappraisal of the 2023 wildfire emergency is disappointing.

NTHSSA said that ensuring claims align with territorial catastrophe assistance argumentation is "essential for maximizing national cost-sharing and ensuring compliance with eligibility requirements."

Robert Hawkins, MLA for Yellowknife Centre, gave announcement connected Friday that helium would bring guardant a question related to AVENS's costs successful October, during the adjacent sitting of the Legislative Assembly.