P.E.I. government votes down motion calling for public inquiry into Fiona response

P.E.I.'s governing PCs voted down an Opposition motion calling for a public inquiry into the government's response to post-tropical storm Fiona Wednesday.

The storm initially knocked out power to the entire province after it started to batter the Island on the night of Sept. 23. Some were without power for up to three weeks.

The Green Party brought the motion to the floor, and the third party Liberals supported it.

But with the title "Condemning government's response to Fiona," the motion was never likely to gain the PC support it needed to pass.

The non-binding motion would have called on the legislative assembly to "urge government to immediately initiate a public inquiry into the response to post-tropical storm Fiona so that a full accounting of its actions can be heard and lessons learned in preparation for future storms."

Even though it was defeated, government could still choose to call a public inquiry.

Premier Dennis King, one of 12 PCs to vote against the motion, told reporters Wednesday that "we need to do a comprehensive review of the hurricane and its impacts here" but that the province is "still in sort-of clean-up mode," and that a decision by cabinet will be made soon on what form that review will take.

The motion's sponsor Peter Bevan-Baker said the consultant's report the King government commissioned from Calian Emergency Management Solutions following post-tropical storm Dorian in 2019 was "fairly limited in its scope." 

He also said government "really did not learn what it should have done from that report."

Bevan-Baker said that type of investigation lacks the ability a public inquiry would have to compel documents and testimony from third parties, including Maritime Electric, the Red Cross, and telecommunications companies.

"Without that information we're not going to get all the answers to the questions … and we will end up in the same place again."

Liberal MLA Gord McNeilly said the Dorian report "didn't give us any information about how this affected Islanders. …a public inquiry can go into those details."

"How was our different populations affected? So seniors first of all, long-term care facilities, schools."

Some government-owned seniors' housing facilities were without power for as long as 12 days, even though they were on the priority list to have power restored. Not all facilities had generators to provide backup power. The province has since committed to changing that.