The province has heard the many complaints about the Disaster Recovery Program.

Municipal Affairs Minister Danielle Larivee announced steps Monday aimed at clearing the backlog and ending as least part of the practice of clawing back overpayments.

Councillor Bruce Masterman, who is also the council representative to the DRP Advocacy Committee says he'd have liked more.

"I like the commitment that she made about forgiving some of the overpayments up to $5,000 because obviously the overpayments being clawed back has added to the grief of everybody, but especially the people who are being asked for that money back," Masterman says. "I guess I'm wondering, and we're wondering why not just forgive it all, like up to $10,000 as well, like let's just get rid of that one total pain in the butt, and let those people move on."

About 550 cases had overpayments and only about 75 were for more than $5,000. Those will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

Masterman says Minister Larivee said all the right things in their meeting before the public announcement was made but council's heard all the right things before and they want her to prove she's the one to correct it.

He also wonders why Larivee's still not accepting a resolution passed by over 90-per cent of representatives at the AUMA convention calling for an external review of the program.

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