Environment Committee on June 19th, 2017

[Lori MacDonald]

It could be from the incapacity of the ground to absorb the water and torrential rains or severe weather, or it could be from a river flooding.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Okay. So you're talking about all of it. They are very different in the sense of how you deal with them.

On the mapping, there is real conflict out there on the mapping of what exists and what's right and what isn't, so are you working with the provinces and the municipalities in getting this done?

[Lori MacDonald]

Absolutely. We work with every province and territory as well as municipalities and the private sector, academics, technical experts—

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Do you believe that it is totally done now?

[Lori MacDonald]

The flood plain mapping?

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Yes.

[Lori MacDonald]

No, the flood plain mapping is not done. There are different phases of flood plain mapping. It depends on the leadership role that a province, territory, or municipality takes in terms of where they prioritize flood plain mapping.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

There's no target for a national mapping that would show us that, then?

[Lori MacDonald]

We have a target for national flood plain mapping guidelines, which was a commitment made as a result of this audit and recommendation, so we announced that in March 2017. Now it's up to each individual province and territory to lead that initiative in terms of completing their flood plain mapping.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

There's no end date to get this done?

[Lori MacDonald]

We don't establish an end date for them, no.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Okay, and you're not regulated to do it.

[Lori MacDonald]

No.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Okay, so it's wide open and still out there.

I'm talking about the differences in overland flooding and what streams cause, there's a difference in the sense of what municipalities will do with developers. If a developer says he wants to put in a 16-inch pipe, you have overland flooding from storms, and maybe a 24-inch pipe would do it. That's a decision that's made, versus allowing a developer to build on a flood plain. There's a difference there in insurance coverage. The insurance coverage will cost in sewer backup overland flooding in a different way than it will with the lack of capacity in infrastructure. Do you deal with all of that?

[Lori MacDonald]

Yes. We work with the National Research Council of Canada on things like building codes. We work with the Canada Mortgage and Housing agency. We work with a number of different entities that have a capacity to influence provinces, territories, and municipalities in terms of the kinds of programs and initiatives that are put in place.

As an example, we also have some mitigation programs that support those kinds of concepts. Examples would be encouraging individual homeowners to put in backwater valves or to have rebates on programs and so on.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Would developers and municipalities decide how much pipe and capacity?

[Lori MacDonald]

We personally don't do that, but we work with the building code—

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Right, back to the building codes....

We can talk about hail insurance. The hail insurance guys do a seeding program to reduce the amount of hail. That's something they do at their cost. It's a good program. It's been out there for a long time, so it's not new.

You talked about flooding. The largest flooding that I would remember was in 1965 in Waterton park. We had 11 inches of rain on rocks, and a north wind so that the water didn't get out of the lake. It flooded the community to the highest level it had ever been flooded. It was a combination of events. In 2013, the 11 inches of rain that happened west of Calgary was—again—on rocks. If it had been 50 kilometres out on our prairie land areas, there would have been a huge difference.

As for the idea of surveys, how does that help you plan for that?

[Lori MacDonald]

I'm not sure if my colleagues from Environment and Climate Change or NRCan could answer that question. I don't have knowledge of that. I'm sorry.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Okay.

Let's go to the gas tax: your world. You say, “As part of the New Building Canada Plan, the renewed federal Gas Tax Fund...provides predictable, long-term, stable funding for Canadian municipalities to help them build and revitalize their local public infrastructure...”. Are you saying in your audit that it's not coming back to you when municipalities are saying that they've a road or they've replaced a water or sewer line? You're not getting it back? It's the challenge of the regulatory piece. Are you getting the information back on what municipalities are doing with it?

[Laura Di Paolo]

Do you want to go ahead...?

[Bogdan Makuc, Director, Program Integration, Office of Infrastructure of Canada]

Yes.

We get a report each year that lists the projects that funds were invested in.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Yet in the information we hear, it seems that there is a challenge, a gap of some kind.

[Bogdan Makuc]

The gap identified by the report last year was in terms of the outcomes. We invest in the projects, and then the projects, individually and collectively, contribute to outcomes. The audit report found last year that we had challenges in trying to report on how those projects contributed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, cleaner air, and cleaner water.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

But it says the fund is for long and stable planning so municipalities can revitalize their public infrastructure. It doesn't say what you said.