Late last month, the Regional District of Bulkley Nechako released a letter criticizing the Canadian Red Cross’s spending of 2017 Wildfire relief funding.
In the letter, the RDBN claimed that the organization had only spent 70 of the 160 million dollars available, and that the remainder should be spent on 2018 relief.
However, according to Kimberley Nemrava, the Canadian Red Cross’s Vice President for BC, it’s not as easy as simply transfering the funding.
Nemrava went on to say that the organization has actually spent a significantly larger chunk of the funding than the RDBN initially claimed.
In response to the massive disparity between funding from 2017 to 2018, Nemrava says that they can only work with what they are given.
Comparatively, the organization received just 2 million dollars in funding to spend on 2018 relief.
In response to claims that they had given 7 million dollars from the 2017 funding to the BC Fire Chief’s Association, Nemrava says that, while they are in discussions regarding many community partnerships, nothing has been finalized or confirmed.
You can listen to the interview in its entirety below:
