Residents who lost homes to Sask. wildfires meet with law firm about class-action suit against province
Procido LLP to decide whether it will move forward with suit by July 18
A Saskatoon law firm is weighing whether to launch a class-action lawsuit against the Saskatchewan government over how the province responded to northern wildfires.
Chad Eggerman, founding partner at Procido LLP, told CBC News that residents who lost everything to the fires have come forward to share their stories.
Eggerman said he was expecting five or six people to attend a webinar on Monday meant to provide information about the class-action process. Instead, more than 100 people showed up.
"I knew immediately that there was people that were frustrated, that had suffered losses and damages. And I think more importantly, nobody was listening to them," Eggerman said in an interview on Monday after the webinar.
Residents from East Trout Lake and the Northern Village of Denare Beach in Saskatchewan have publicly complained about the lack of response from the provincial government as wildfires threatened their homes.
One family from East Trout Lake, located about 250 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon, said they repeatedly warned officials about the approaching wildfire, but were brushed off in the days before it tore through their home and community.
Residents of Denare Beach, located close to the Saskatchewan-Manitoba border, have said they received no help from the provincial government, despite high winds, dry weather and the Wolf fire moving in fast. More than 200 homes were destroyed.
Rhonda Werbicki lost her home in that blaze and attended the webinar on Monday.
Werbicki said she's interested in the class-action because she wants to make sure this never happens again.
"Nobody really wants to go to court, especially on this kind of a scale. But I do think that some wrongdoings were done, and I do think that we need answers, and I do think that our province needs to be held accountable," Werbicki said.
Rebecca McCrimmon, who lost her home and garage in Denare Beach, said she's "100 per cent" supportive of the class action.
"Why didn't they let someone helps us to start with and left us to just burn?" McCrimmon said.
The Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency has previously said all six of the wildfires in the province at the time received "multiple levels of response" including air tankers, firefighting crews and helicopter support.
Just the start
Eggerman stressed that the law firm is just at the start of what could be a years-long or decades-long process.
Class-action lawsuits are expensive and can take a lot of time, Eggerman said. They're also often taken on contingency, meaning there's no guarantee of payment for the law firm.
Part of what his firm is debating is whether it's equipped to deal with a lengthy, protracted legal battle, Eggerman said.
It's also weighing whether there are enough people who could qualify as a class. Eggerman said the response has made it clear that many people feel aggrieved with the province's handling of the wildfires.
"There's certainly a group that suffered a similar harm or loss in that 3.5-million acre area where the fires have burned," he said.
Now, the firm needs to identify a potential representative plaintiff, someone able to represent the interests of that entire class.
If Procido LLC does file a class-action, it would need to get the proposed class certified by the court, Eggerman said.
The firm plans to inform potential clients on whether it will move forward with the suit by July 18.
Eggerman said he wants to make sure the people who feel they were left behind by the province now have somewhere to turn.
"I'm hopeful that there's some positive change here in the sense that resources are put in place to deal with a changing climate and that more importantly public property and private property and people are protected in northern Saskatchewan," Eggerman said.
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