Three weeks after a severe storm caused extensive damage to Cape Breton and surrounding areas, the Houston government has finally announced a funding program to help Nova Scotians impacted by the disaster.

“My first question is – what took so long?” says Sydney-Membertou MLA Derek Mombourquette. “We have people out of house and home and roads that were upended. It’s imperative that the government acts with urgency in those situations and they didn’t.”

After Cape Breton’s Thanksgiving floods of 2016, the Liberal government had $500,000 in emergency financial relief out the door within 72 hours, with the Disaster Financial Assistance Program initiated just two days later.

“We welcome this money but it shouldn’t have taken close to a month for the Houston government to respond,” says Mombourquette. “To go from our Liberal government having funding on the ground within three days, to the Houston government’s silence for three weeks, that’s a variable that Nova Scotians don’t deserve.”

The Nova Scotia Liberal Party wants to know: where was the Houston government this whole time?