Provincial Tornado Assistance for Waterloo-Wellington Bumped Up

After weeks of delay, Ontario’s Minister of Municipal Affairs has announced an increase in Provincial tornado assistance for the Townships of Centre Wellington and Mapleton and the Grand River Conservation Authority (GRCA).

Writing to Mayors Russ Spicer of Centre Wellington and John Green of Mapleton on February 17th, the Honourable John Gerretsen promised to bump up the financial assistance from the Province to the two municipalities and the GRCA by $162,500. This amount is over and above the Minister’s initial offer of $335,100 which he had announced last October.

In response to the news, Waterloo-Wellington MPP Ted Arnott again congratulated the Councils and Staff of the two municipalities as well as GRCA officials.

“Our Mayors, Councils, and Staff worked hard to make the case that we’d been shortchanged by the Government after last summer’s tornadoes,” Mr. Arnott said. “Although this new money isn’t as much as we had expected, at least it’s something.”

On August 19th, 2005, severe weather across southern Ontario created two tornadoes which touched down causing millions of dollars of property damage in Waterloo-Wellington. Miraculously, there was no loss of life. However, the Townships and the GRCA faced massive cleanup costs.

As soon as the Ontario Legislature resumed sitting in the fall, Waterloo-Wellington MPP Ted Arnott raised the need for Provincial disaster assistance. He continued to press the case repeatedly in the House, after the Minister made his initial, inadequate offer in October.

Just before the House broke for Christmas, Mr. Arnott forced a “late show” debate on the issue after filing a motion of dissatisfaction with the reply he had received from the Minister during Question Period.

“We worked together to convince the Government that our needs were real and merited Provincial financial assistance,” Mr. Arnott concluded. “The Government should be confident that this funding will be put to good use.”