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MP urges province to speed up compensation

Testalinden slide victims still awaiting compensation

Alex Atamanenko, MP for British Columbia Southern Interior, recently sent a letter to B.C. Premier Christy Clark, urging her to speed up the process of compensation for the victims of last year’s Testalinden Creek mudslide, south of Oliver.

Atamanenko included correspondence sent to him by Gene and Kathy Mercier, in which they  outlined the frustration they  had been enduring in seeking compensation for the disaster.

The Merciers noted that in the year since the slide, which took place in June of 2010, the creek had been returned to its proper location and their property access had been restored, but communications with the province’s legal representatives had otherwise met with frustration and “apparent disinterest” in their situation.

In discussing the issue with MLA John Slater and RDOS Area “C” Director Allan Patton, Atamanenko expressed the feeling that, had the disaster happened in the Greater Vancouver area, all victims would have been adequately compensated by now.