NDP's Andrea Horwath Hits Peterborough Days After Massive Windstorm Strikes Town

New Democratic Party (NDP) provincial leader Andrea Horwath stopped in Peterborough to witness the damage from Saturday’s massive windstorm on Wednesday afternoon.

NDP Provincial Leader Andrea Horwath (left), Mayor Diane Therrien (middle) and Peterborough-Kawartha riding candidate Jen Deck at the Lions Club where several large trees were uprooted from Saturday’s windstorm. Photo by David Tuan Bui.

Horwath came at Mayor Diane Therrien’s request shortly after the storm hit the area. It was the first day Horwath went back on tour from isolation since she tested positive for COVID-19 last Thursday.

“It's shocking to see the impact of the storm,” said Horwath. “One minute, everything was a normal Saturday afternoon and then within a matter of minutes, complete havoc rained through the community and that's a scary thing. Seeing it physically makes me feel a lot of concern for people who actually went through it."

“There's a lot of devastation," said Therrien. “We still have a lot of residents without power and a lot of folks who are really struggling. We worry about seniors that are isolated and some of the folks in some of the high-rise buildings with accessibility issues are certainly a concern so the City's been doing everything they can.”

Therrien, Horwath and Peterborough-Kawartha riding candidate Jen Deck walked around the East City area and discussed issues that needed to be addressed as a result of the storm’s damage.

“I think these kinds of incidents reinforce the imperative that we have to deal with the climate emergency," said Horwath. “Our plan, the Green New Democratic Deal is one that is very proactive that will bring our greenhouse gas emissions down by 50 percent by 2030 and have a carbon-neutral economy by 2050."

Horwath was critical of the province’s disaster response system.

"The disaster response system in Ontario has never really functioned very well so people end up waiting sometimes years for any kind of financial assistance and that's not just good enough," explained Horwath. "We need to be getting financial assistance into people's pockets as quickly as possible, our plan calls for a 30-day maximum in terms of having to wait."

@ptbo_canada #PTBOCanada resident caught Saturdays #ONStorm from their apartment building. Transformers & Hydro lines down all over the city🤳: Nevil Patel #Derecho #Weather #Transformer ♬ Stan by Eminem - vanessa

Therrien called a state of emergency for Peterborough earlier that morning after submitting the declaration to the province yesterday.

"The state of emergency helps the municipality by giving us a little bit more flexibility to work around the normal government process,” said Therrien. “Government doesn't always work the fastest so being able to call in different partners rather than go through a procurement process, just to be able to say we need this kind of equipment, we need this kind of people and volunteers now. It just gives us the ability to be more nimble in our decision making."

Therrien could not offer a timeline of when the state of emergency will be lifted.

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