(Montreal) Special financial assistance was announced Saturday morning by the Government of Quebec to cover food losses suffered by beneficiaries of social assistance programs following power outages.
Posted at 10:42
Some 26,000 Quebec homes remain without electricity, a week after the passage of violent storms.
Social assistance recipients who have been affected by an outage lasting more than 24 hours are eligible for this assistance of $75 per person. The maximum amount for each family is $300.
“It is essential to support the most vulnerable people in our society,” Labor Minister Jean Boulet said in a statement on Saturday.
Shortly before 10 a.m. Saturday, more than 12,000 subscribers were without electricity in the Laurentians. Nearly 5,000 customers were also affected respectively in Montérégie and Outaouais.
Hydro-Québec’s Twitter account indicated on Friday evening “that there are currently approximately 13,100 customers affected by the outages that began on May 21 and 22” and that the teams would work “all weekend to restore as much as possible the current as quickly as possible.
In Ontario, 19,000 Hydro Ottawa customers are still without power. Nearly 27,000 Hydro One customers are also affected by the outages on Saturday morning.
Hydro One anticipates that 99% of customers affected by the storm will be reconnected to the grid. However, the company warns that stricken customers in the Bancroft, Perth and Tweed areas are expected to be without power for several more days or even weeks.
Bad weather last Saturday killed at least 11 people in Ontario and Quebec. The latest death, reported Thursday, is that of a 58-year-old man who OPP say was struck by a falling tree in a remote area of the town of Marmora & Lake.