Rebuilt houses and one still under construction in an aerial view of Lytton, B.C. in August, 2025. It will be years yet before Lytton is anything resembling the town it once was, writes Gary Mason.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
When a wildfire destroyed Lytton, B.C., in June, 2021, there were just 210 people living in the town situated at the confluence of the Thompson and Fraser rivers.
Most of the homes and all the local businesses burned to the ground, leaving Lytton with no functional tax base with which to operate. Sixty per cent of residents who lost their homes had no fire insurance. The fire also razed the town’s municipal building and all the records inside it.
The village was administered by a small, six-person operation, including a manager, a couple of clerks and some public works staff. There were no bylaw officers, no planners and no engineers. It had a mayor and only two councillors.
Against that backdrop, the province’s New Democratic Party government decided it was a good idea to put Lytton in charge of its own reconstruction. Not a team from the B.C. or federal government that included planners and engineers and people with experience in helping towns rebuild after natural disasters – no, the NDP decided it would be better to have a traumatized council and its minuscule, traumatized staff oversee the town’s rebirth.
It’s one of the cruellest and most financially foolish decisions a government in B.C. has ever made.
B.C. was unprepared to help Lytton rebuild after wildfire, A-G report says
Just how negligent and reckless it was is spelled out in a new report on Lytton’s wildfire recovery by B.C. Auditor-General Bridget Parrish.
Ms. Parrish quickly zoomed in on the limited amount of oversight and accountability that accompanied the tens of millions of dollars the government was sending Lytton for the rebuild.
The town was supposed to provide a regular accounting of where the money was going, but it was understandably in such a state of disarray that it failed to do so in 2022 and 2023. By the end of 2022, the province had dispensed $34.6-million in assistance; within months, it had sent another $10-million. How it was all spent, no one could say for certain.
The village’s inexperience showed. It initially budgeted $5.1-million for debris removal and soil remediation, for instance; within months, the estimate jumped to $16.7-million. To this point, B.C. has given Lytton more than $60-million.
In July, 2023, the government hired an accounting firm to review whether the town was properly accounting for the emergency funding. It found that crucial documents were often missing or incomplete. Turnover among village management resulted in other information gaps. The firm concluded that Lytton “lacked the leadership and governance capacity to manage such substantive and complex contracts.”
Wow. Who could have imagined?
Wildfire near Lytton, B.C., larger than estimated, aerial mapping reveals
The decision to put the local council in charge is even more egregious when you consider that the renewal plan had to align with the 2019 Declaration Act, which protects rights under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Lytton is located within the territory of the Nlaka’pamux Nation Tribal Council, which represents four member communities.
When Indigenous artifacts were discovered during the site preparation process, the Nlaka’pamux had the authority to order an archeological examination of the area. Tensions between the First Nations and the town started boiling over as this work dragged on, preventing the start of rebuilding. In October, 2023, residents held a demonstration to protest the archeology requirements set out by new B.C. laws.
Still, the provincial government kept sending Lytton oodles of cash in the hopes it would all just somehow miraculously work out. As of today, only 17 homes out of 45 that existed before the fire have been rebuilt, according to Mayor Denise O’Connor. Compare that to Jasper, where a wildfire destroyed 374 properties in July, 2024. With far more expertise available for its reconstruction, 16 homes have already been replaced, with another 75 under construction.
Taxpayers in B.C. will likely never know what happened to millions of dollars sent to Lytton for its rebuild. For the NDP government, which is piling up debt at historic rates, this isn’t likely a huge concern. What’s $10-million here or $20-million there for a government racking up deficits of more than $11-billion?
Hopefully, when the next natural disaster hits B.C., the powers that be will have learned something from the disastrous effort to rebuild Lytton. That is not an indictment of the people who were completely in over their heads as they tried to put their town back together. The fault lies with a government that couldn’t be bothered putting people on the ground that could truly help these people out. Couldn’t be bothered, initially anyway, to ensure that every cheque the government wrote came with a receipt.
It will be years yet before Lytton is anything resembling the town it once was. It didn’t have to be this way.