Children’s advocate says province fell short on emergency preparedness for young wildfire evacuees, calls for ‘urgent action’

The Manitoba Advocate for Children and Youth is condemning government leaders’ failure to protect young wildfire evacuees from further traumatization or their right to access education.

Sherry Gott is calling on the Kinew government to take “urgent action” and establish child-friendly emergency-response plans before the 2026 wildfire season.

“We’re really disappointed in Manitoba’s preparedness, which did not consider children and youth as a specific group in need of special care and attention,” she said Wednesday.

Gott said the response is particularly inexcusable given the recent COVID-19 pandemic disruptions to education and the lasting fallout on student well-being from the health crisis.

Her office, also known as MACY, is an independent, non-partisan unit of the Manitoba Legislative Assembly.

MACY publishes regular reports on children’s rights issues and raises awareness about the youngest Manitobans’ lived experiences with government services they receive “or should be receiving.”

Following the latest wildfire season, Gott said it’s clear to her that Manitoba needs to take an all-hands-on-deck approach to better support children who must flee their home communities.

“Red Cross can’t do everything,” she said.

The advocate is recommending the province establish a task force to develop culturally appropriate policies and protocols.

Children’s voices need to be taken into account in developing them, said Gott, a member of Sapotaweyak Cree Nation, a remote community in northwestern Manitoba.

Sapotaweyak, located roughly 500 kilometres from Winnipeg, did not have to evacuate during the wildfire season but hundreds of residents had to flee when heavy smoke engulfed their community in 2018.

Gott noted that, as is typically the case, the majority of this year’s evacuees were First Nations.

Families from Marcel Columb First Nation, Pukatawagan and Leaf Rapids, among others, were displaced for more than three months this year.

MACY estimates there were upwards of 32,400 people from roughly 12,400 households in Manitoba evacuated over the spring and summer.

Hundreds of children and young adults were evacuated more than once during the unprecedented wildfires.

Drawing on her belief system as an Indigenous woman and advocate, Gott said evacuee children have physical, mental, emotional and spiritual needs that went unmet.

“It was just so overwhelming,” she said, noting many First Nations students missed out on both academic and land-based lessons.

Fishing and berry-picking seasons were interrupted in many remote communities, if they were not missed entirely.

Gott’s office deployed support workers to emergency shelters to hear directly from children living in congregate settings.

“They lost their social connections. They were housed in unsafe situations. It was loud. It was crowded environments. They lacked privacy,” Gott said.

Whether they are evacuated due to fires, floods or otherwise, children need immediate access to psychological services and temporary learning spaces or tutoring, she said.

The Free Press has requested comment from Education Minister Tracy Schmidt’s office.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca