Northern legal aid lawyers still adjusting a month after losing their office in The Pas to fire
CBC
Monica Ross and two attorney colleagues based in The Pas are getting resettled weeks after a fire forced them from the local Legal Aid Manitoba office.
Ross recalls hopping in her truck and driving to the downtown building on March 20 after her assistant notified her about a fire. She arrived to see flames spewing from the upper part of the multi-use building.
"I almost had a heart attack," Ross said over the phone from The Pas, about 520 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg. "You're just in a state of panic, because … my client files are in there — not only mine but the other staff."
About half of the 20 volunteer firefighters with The Pas department responded at about 3 a.m, says Matt Pecar, one of two volunteer captains temporarily in charge after the town parted ways with its staff fire chief in March.
Pecar says the fire appeared to originate in one of three apartment suites on the upper floor of the building.
The fire was substantial enough that Pecar called in extra support from the fire department in the neighbouring community of Opaskwayak Cree Nation. The teams extinguished the blaze early that afternoon.
The office of the fire commissioner took over the investigation. Damage was estimated at $2 million, and a provincial spokesperson said the cause of the fire was "incendiary," suggesting it was set deliberately.
RCMP also said the fire is being investigated as arson and that no arrests have been made.
The Pas Friendship Centre has helped organize donations for tenants from the apartment suites.
Everything from computers, desks and hard copy files of client information were lost in the Legal Aid Manitoba office.
"The loss to the office ended up being complete," said Legal Aid Manitoba executive director Peter Kingsley, who travelled to The Pas from Winnipeg to support Ross and the others that first week.
Luckily, the vast majority of the 300 active client files had already been digitized and backed up just hours before the fire, Kingsley says.
Some paper files were water-damaged or lost, according to Ross, who took some home with her in an attempt to dry out and salvage what she could. The local Crown attorney's office has helped provide copies of some files as well.
The legal aid team now has a temporary office space and its lawyers are also conducting business from home. That's new for Ross, who worked from the office through much of the pandemic.
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