QUEEN’S PARK – Bill Mauro MPP for Thunder Bay Atikokan was up during Member’s Statements in the Ontario Legislature on Tuesday. Mauro was addressing the Legislature on the status of flood relief in Conmee.

Bill Mauro – Great news for Conmee

Conmee is a community just west of Thunder Bay in my riding of Thunder Bay–Atikokan. People might be more familiar with Kakabeka Falls and Oliver Paipoonge. If you go through Kakabeka Falls, you find yourself in Conmee quite quickly. It’s a very small community: about 760 people and about 200 to 230 households.

In May 2012, Thunder Bay and region, including Conmee, was hit by what many are calling a 100-year flood and, of course, they suffered severe damage to their infrastructure, their roads and their bridges.

A few days after that, I was able to tour the damage with Reeve Kevin Holland. Speaker, I’m very pleased to say that the former Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing and now the Premier, Kathleen Wynne, showed up in Thunder Bay within about eight days after the disaster hit and announced about $16 million in funding relief through ODRAP at Saint Peter’s church in the east end. We were very pleased to have her for that. The relief was for Thunder Bay–Atikokan, Thunder Bay, Oliver Paipoonge and Conmee.

Conmee’s original estimate came in at about $800,000, but in working with the ministry, that number has now been revised. Very recently, at the ROMA/OGRA conference—the Rural Ontario Municipal Association—I was very pleased to meet with Reeve Holland, CAO Maxwell, and Councillor MacMaster so that we could share the great news with them about the revised number, having worked with them, increasing that $800,000 number by $1.2 million to a total of $2 million for Conmee to help them with their roads and their bridges as a result of that disaster.

I want to thank everybody involved for their work—great news for Conmee in my riding of Thunder Bay–Atikokan.