Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister, for being here, and thank you to your officials as well, each of you, for being here, and to all of you for the good work that you do.
Minister, I want to talk specifically about flooding. You and I both represent ridings in Manitoba that deal with flooding. In 2011 the city of Portage la Prairie, the diversion, and many of the communities around Portage la Prairie were affected very severely by flooding, some of it natural and some of it because the province of Manitoba had to make some very difficult decisions because water was flowing in from Saskatchewan and flows in from our neighbours to the south. My riding in Portage—Lisgar experienced some very devastating flooding, some because the province had to deal with water that could probably flood a greater population in Winnipeg.
The province of Manitoba is known to deal very well with flooding. You yourself representing Provencher understand this clearly. The whole area of the town of Morris and the municipality of Morris had severe flooding as well. The interesting thing is that, after the new boundary changes, it looks like Morris will also be in the riding of Portage—Lisgar. So Portage—Lisgar will be a riding that has historically had to deal with a lot of flooding.
My concern, Minister, is that there has been a lot of snow in Manitoba. Two weeks ago some of my riding got almost 60 centimetres of snow. Just this last weekend we had another 30 centimetres. Almost every weekend there's water. Now, thankfully, a lot of that water will be absorbed but, depending on where water is coming from, whether from Saskatchewan or parts south of us, we know that there could be a lot of water coming once again.
Two fronts I want to ask you about. As it relates to the main estimates, you mentioned almost $40 million of extra funding specifically for flooding. I was very disappointed when that was not supported by the opposition. I definitely think that natural disasters and certainly flooding are not a political issue. It's our job as the federal government to support projects that mitigate the effects of flooding, and so it was disappointing not to have that support from the opposition. But I'm very grateful that your ministry, that Public Safety sees the importance of dealing with flooding in a responsible way.
I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about mitigation efforts and why you, the government, and our Prime Minister felt... He was there for 2011, he saw the flooding in Portage la Prairie and he saw the devastation of the farms that were destroyed. Would you talk about the importance of mitigation and working together with a province like Manitoba, which has done an excellent job over the last 25 years to deal with flooding?