Jasper, Alta., re-entry details to be announced Monday, mayor says
CBC
Residents of Jasper, Alta., will learn Monday when they can return home, according to Mayor Richard Ireland.
A monster wildfire that forced thousands to evacuate Jasper National Park ripped through the historic townsite nearly three weeks ago, incinerating about one-third of its homes and businesses.
On Monday, members of the unified command, made up of Parks Canada and Municipality of Jasper representatives, will release the date of re-entry and details about how it will work, Ireland announced during a virtual news conference Saturday.
"Returning residents safely to their homes has been — and continues to be — an overriding goal of the incident management team," he said.
The "precise terms" for re-entry are still being tweaked, he added.
In the days after the fire hit Jasper, some government officials speculated that evacuees could be displaced for several weeks.
Required re-entry criteria were eventually developed, listing things that had to be in place before evacuees could return, such as improved air quality and restored critical services.
Officials working in the town and responding to the wildfire have provided progress updates, but until Saturday, there had been no hint about when re-entry could occur.
"[Residents and local business owners] have clung to the prospect of re-entry as some reward — not, of course, for their immeasurable suffering, but for their enduring patience and understanding," Ireland said.
"Monday, they will know."
Re-entry criteria "continue to be achieved at an accelerating pace," Ireland said, adding he hopes news of the impending information will help comfort evacuees.
The Jasper-Alberta-Canada intergovernmental redevelopment committee, which will have representatives from all levels of government, was established to oversee, coordinate and advise elected officials to address needs in Jasper as the community recovers, the municipality said in a Facebook post Friday.
The Jasper Wildfire Complex, a group of fires burning in the national park, is still out of control. The complex is among 116 wildfires burning throughout the province as of 1 p.m. MT Saturday, according to the Alberta Wildfire dashboard.
Cooler temperatures and rainfall helped firefighters make progress on the Jasper wildfire, said Jonathan Large, a Parks Canada incident commander, during Saturday's virtual news conference.
As classes across New Brunswick pause for the holidays, it’s not yet clear which schools are making a dent in chronic absenteeism — a stubborn post-pandemic trend that mostly afflicts the high school cohort, especially in the Anglophone West school district.
CBC Quebec has launched its Make the Season Kind campaign. It's our annual campaign that focuses on food insecurity, while also celebrating kindness, generosity and community spirit around the province.
Premier Wab Kinew says Manitoba will hold a public inquiry as soon as 2026 into the former Progressive Conservative government’s post-election efforts to approve an environmental licence for sand-mining company Sio Silica.
Premier Scott Moe has led the Saskatchewan Party through two straight elections, winning majority governments each time.
Eight weeks after adding a GM BrightDrop van to the fleet of his plumbing and heating business, Marty Salliss has no complaints, only praise.
Nearly half of Alberta’s Grade 6 students failed the provincewide math test in 2024, three years after the province started rolling out its new elementary school curriculum.
Toronto could get new cars on the road whose drivers will never get frustrated by gridlock — because the cars would be driving themselves.
Amidst a cost-of-living crisis, some London-area organizations say they have noticed a decline in donations this holiday season.
Prominent northern leaders have been touting the Arctic economic and security corridor as a "nation-building" project that will bring economic benefits to the two territories it straddles, but others are split on how much good will come out of it.
When the federal government tabled its 2025 budget last month, it included a proposal that tax fraud experts say is long overdue — if also a belated acknowledgement that the Canada Revenue Agency has been repeatedly duped into paying out untold millions in bogus tax refunds to scammers.
Talking with an AI chatbot can successfully convince people to change their votes and could affect the outcome of future elections, according to a new study.
While some are writing wishlists for Santa Claus, a group of Newfoundland and Labrador youth are writing their wishlist for the provincial government.
A horse owner near Stewiacke, N.S., says the current shortage of hay in the province is putting pressure on her financially.