Thompson says finding hotel rooms for evacuees 'difficult' as Manitoba mulls invoking emergency powers

The City of Thompson says moving wildfire evacuees from its congregate shelter to hotel lodgings should be "a top priority," but that finding accommodations is hard this time of the year.

Premier Wab Kinew said Thursday following a visit to the shelter set up for evacuees at the city's regional community centre that hotel operators should step up and voluntarily open rooms for those who fled the fires, dangling the possibility of using emergency powers to get them to do so after seeing some with "parking lots that are empty."

On Friday, the premier specifically referenced hotels in Thompson, which is about 650 kilometres north of Winnipeg as the crow flies.

"I would invite you or anyone else to go Google Thompson hotel rooms right now. You'll see that you can book some rooms for the next week," he told reporters at an unrelated event Friday.

"You got families with young, young kids. You know, I invite any parents out there to think about trying to raise a four-month-old and a four-year-old sleeping on a cot … going into day 18."

WATCH | Premier calls on Thompson hotel operators to step up:

The province said 180 evacuees were still at the Thompson congregate shelter as of Friday, more than two weeks since the province declared a state of emergency.

In Winnipeg — which was expecting the largest number of evacuees — fewer than 90 people were staying at the Leila congregate shelter as of then, the government said.

The City of Thompson said in an email statement Mayor Colleen Smook spoke with Kinew about the need to move the evacuees out of the congregate shelter quickly during the premier's visit to that city and the wildfire zone around Flin Flon Thursday.

"Unfortunately, hotel rooms in Thompson can be difficult to find in the spring and summer due to construction projects employing many out-of-town workers," the statement said.

More than 21,000 people have evacuated their communities because of the fires raging in the province.

Manitoba Hotel Association CEO Michael Juce said there's only about 15,000 hotel rooms in Manitoba — some of them in places that are still under evacuation orders.

"This is a really big challenge," Juce said. "Everyone travels for a purpose and sometimes those people are staying in a hotel for medical reasons or medical stays.… It's a really complex issue."

WATCH | Kinew tours northern wildfire zone: