Thank you.
The issue of mitigation is a very important one. It's something that we looked at after the 1997 flood in Manitoba. I was in the provincial government at that time. We worked together with the federal government at that time to bring forward a mitigation program. As a result of that mitigation program—which was essentially 50-50 funding—we were able to protect communities by way of ring dike and enhance the protection for roads and other infrastructure.
As a result, since 1997, I might be mistaken, but I don't believe that there's been one home flooded since 1997 along that Red River valley. Other damage has taken place but we've been able to protect residences.
So instead of the federal government through DFAA paying 90-cent dollars every year when the flooding occurs, we are able to ring dike those homes, those communities south of Winnipeg. There may have been a couple of homes south of Winnipeg. But that was for other reasons that they were flooded.
Some of the areas north of Winnipeg do need to be addressed in the same way and of course some of the areas in the western part of the province, including your riding.
So mitigation in the long-term benefits the taxpayer, not just the people who have been flooded, but it benefits the taxpayer that we don't have to react after a flood but that we can take proactive action to prevent the damage of flooding in these widespread areas. We've seen quite a bit of snow in Saskatchewan. I don't know what it is in North Dakota. I know a couple of weeks ago the flood forecast was fairly benign, but with some of the added snow...I think Miami, Manitoba received the highest amount of snow in Manitoba in your riding, as opposed to Miami, Florida.
But this snow will melt, will become water and we hope that the efforts of the emergency measures people will prevent damage. But in the long term, mitigation is what is going to protect these communities in a much more substantive and ongoing way.