ST. JOHN’S – Newfoundland and Labrador’s housing minister says the provincial election campaign won’t stall talks with the federal government about compensation for people who lost homes to wildfires this year.
Liberal Jamie Korab is running to win back his St. John’s district in the provincial election on Oct. 14. Government staff, meanwhile, are still dedicated to the fire response, Korab said Monday night as the Liberals launched their election campaign.
“They’ll be working with Red Cross, working (with) the federal government,” Korab said in an interview. “And if pots of money come up that can be funnelled out, it’ll happen.”
But Bob Kelland, the owner of a historic property destroyed by a wildfire in eastern Newfoundland, is not consoled by the minister’s remarks.
“The election is a major distraction,” Kelland said in an interview.
A series of wildfires destroyed more than 200 cabins, homes and other structures in central and eastern Newfoundland this year. In May, a fire destroyed about a dozen homes around Adam’s Cove, N.L., in Conception Bay North, about 45 kilometres northwest of St. John’s. In August, another fire in that area destroyed nearly 200 structures in nine different communities home to a total of more than 2,000 people.
The fires burned houses down to their concrete foundations in some cases, leaving nothing standing but teetering brick chimneys. An elementary school in Western Bay, N.L., was reduced to a mess of charred, twisted metal.
They were not just destroyed, Kelland said. They were “disappeared.”
He owned the Crowley House in Ochre Pit Cove, a registered provincial heritage structure built between 1910 and 1915. There is nothing left of the house, the barn, the garage or the root cellar, he said.
“You wouldn’t even know there was a house there,” he added.
Many people who lost homes to the fires did not have insurance, “for reasons that, in many cases, were beyond their control,” Kelland said. Some had partial insurance for seasonal homes. The fires have left people with nothing, and they don’t yet know if they’ll get any help, he said.
Kelland said the communication between the department, the Canadian Red Cross and people affected by the fire — especially those who live in unincorporated communities with no town councils — has been spotty and “unco-ordinated.” He worried the election campaign period would only make that worse.
Korab said department staff are still in the area doing formal damage assessments. Once the department has a complete picture of the damage, it will get word from the federal government about how much disaster relief is available, Korab said. Then the province can determine how much money it can offer.
The federal government has qualifying thresholds for its disaster financial assistance program, and it wasn’t until later in the summer, when many homes were lost, that the province was eligible for help, Korab added.
Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters last week that the federal government was “working through” compensation details for people who lost homes in the Newfoundland fires, and it will be dispensed “at the appropriate time.”
Kelland said the appropriate time is now.
As of last week, the Red Cross had raised more than $1.9 million for its wildfire response in Newfoundland, according to a news release. That did not include matching funds from the provincial and federal governments.
In the meantime, the RCMP is still investigating if any of the fires involved criminal activity, a spokesperson said last week.
The Liberals held 19 of 40 seats in the legislature when leader John Hogan called the election on Monday. The Progressive Conservatives held 14 seats and the NDP held one. There were two Independents and four seats were vacant.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2025.
