Transport Committee on May 4th, 2023

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to start with Mayor Goetz. You went on the CBC program The House, and you had some very basic criticisms of the national adaptation strategy that had been put out there. In response, the Honourable Bill Blair said specifically that there were hundreds of Merritts.

First of all, I think it's important and I'm sure you'll agree with me, that there is only one Merritt, B.C. Is that correct?

[Michael Goetz]

That's correct. There is only one Merritt, B.C.

There may be hundreds of communities that in the future might be facing what we've faced, but they're not Merritt. They're not Princeton. They're not Abbotsford. Merritt is Merritt.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

In discussions about relocation and the DMAF, you've said that perhaps.... Again, I recognize that the federal government shouldn't be in the process of relocating everything, but for some of those homes that have been severely damaged in flooded areas, you have suggested that they be included in the DMAF. I understand there's a personal example you can give as to why the federal government should be participating in that particular area of damaged homes. Can you give the committee an example?

[Michael Goetz]

Sure, I can.

We have a family. There's a woman named Jennifer Biddlecome, and her husband Everett is in a fight for his life. He has liver cancer. Their home on Pine Street was severely damaged. They cannot sell it. They cannot fix it. They cannot do anything with it. The whole idea was to sell the property to cover the costs for his liver transplant. They've been caught up in the non-buyout—or, as we call it, CLAP, the Coldwater land acquisition plan. That is not able to go forward to buy out not only them but also the 37 other people who are waiting for their lives to get back to normal.

As a mayor, I had to sit and listen to this, so I decided as Mike Goetz—not as the mayor—to do fundraising to help raise money for Mr. Everett Biddlecome's liver transplant.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

That's very generous of you, Mayor, on a personal and a professional basis.

It also has a cost to the municipality, because you can't move forward with diking if some of these properties need to be moved off as part of the overall plan. Is that correct?

[Michael Goetz]

That is correct. These houses have to be taken care of in order for new diking to go ahead. We also have to relocate the river. We have a temporary dike protecting Pine Street, but eventually the river has to go back to its original flow, and these houses would then become unattainable—you couldn't get to them—so yes.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Thank you.

Mayor Coyne, I know you're also on the regional district board. Which communities are also at risk in the RDOS if diking is not dealt with by the provincial and federal governments along with you?

[Spencer Coyne]

In Similkameen alone, we start up in Tulameen, so it's Tulameen, Coalmont, Princeton, rural Hedley I guess we could call it, Keremeos, Cawston, Upper Similkameen Indian Band, Lower Similkameen Indian Band and Eastgate.

We have a number of different communities. Although two municipalities have their own infrastructure—and ours needs between $100 million and $500 million in upgrades—we have miles upon miles of orphan dikes that make our diking systems pretty much useless. Four kilometres before Keremeos is full of holes, and if that fails, then the village itself will flood.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Right now if someone puts an application in they get extra credit or “points”, so to speak, for other secondary benefits like carbon emissions sequestering, those kinds of things. From my understanding, a dike is a dike. It protects people and property. It doesn't reduce carbon emissions.

Do you think that should be looked at, because if a community like Princeton or Keremeos that's in such a credible state is not put on top first, these other communities will get that funding because there's a secondary benefit for lowering emissions, etc.?

[Spencer Coyne]

There's the double-edged side of this. If we want to retreat to be able to create the green space and give the river back its home, there is no funding to buy those properties to do that. We're also not allowed to have trees on the dike itself, because it makes the dike vulnerable.

It's almost impossible to do what's been asked of us, because there's no funding for it and regulations say we can't do certain things. We're darned if we do, and darned if we don't.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

I have a last question for the two of you. The federal government, because it's offering this program and provinces are forced to be there.... Mayor Goetz has said that there should be some standardization. I also believe that there should be some risk assessment involved, because we can't afford to build back better in every single community or to build hockey rinks that are flood-resistant when there's no chance of flooding.

What final things would you like to leave with this committee?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Give a 10-second response, please.

[Spencer Coyne]

I'll go first.

We need to be based on need, not want. I think that's how best to put it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mayor Coyne. You very much succeeded in keeping it to 10 seconds. It was very succinct. Thank you very much.

Let's give it up to Mr. Goetz, as well.

Mayor Goetz, do you have a 10-second response as well?

[Michael Goetz]

I would have to go with Mayor Coyne's position.

I understand that we should be looking at the areas that are flood affected and at risk, and the areas that aren't we should be not looking at those.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Albas.

Thank you to both of our mayors.

Next, we'll go with Mr. Rogers.

Mr. Rogers, the floor is yours. You have five minutes.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Thank you, Chair.

Welcome to all of our guests today.

I know from my time as a former mayor and being involved in municipal government at the provincial and federal level as a member of the board of FCM, there were very many discussions on how we deal with future climate adaptation and future climate disasters. Of course, we're seeing much of that today.

One of the big things, Mr. Gemmel, that at FCM we discussed and debated for years was municipal asset management plans. I'll ask you this question for the benefit of the committee. Do these plans take into account the current and future impacts of climate change on public infrastructure and the costs associated with that?

[Matt Gemmel]

Asset management planning is something that FCM has been advancing and supporting our members with for a number of years now, in part through a program funded by Infrastructure Canada called the municipal asset management program.

One of our recommendations to the federal government, as part of the national adaptation strategy, is that asset management planning can be a very effective way to integrate climate considerations throughout a municipal government's operations.

With the funding that we've received for the green municipal fund to expand the programming we have available for climate adaptation, we are certainly going to be using asset management planning as a way to help especially smaller municipalities better understand the risks to their municipal assets and then to identify where they need to be prioritizing action through an asset management plan.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

You mentioned the green municipal fund, the asset management funding provided by this government. How has that been distributed to municipalities across the country?

[Matt Gemmel]

The asset management program map has been in place for a number of years now. It has primarily funded small rural communities. All municipalities are eligible for it, but the greatest need for asset management planning has been from smaller rural communities in all provinces and territories.

This new funding was only announced this fall, and that program is being developed and will be available in the next fiscal year.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Would you agree that the communications around that fund to smaller municipalities is important? Has it been done and done well, so that all towns know they're available?

[Matt Gemmel]

I certainly hope it's been done well.

We've made every effort to make it available to small rural communities. The feedback we've heard from our membership is that the asset management funding has been particularly important for small communities.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Balser, hurricane Fiona, which you of course referenced earlier, and many storms have been creating havoc in many of our coastal communities. We've seen a great deal of coastal erosion in many of the towns that I represent in my riding, with hurricanes and windstorms causing tremendous damage to coastlines. It's not just to coastlines, but coastlines that are closely associated with municipal infrastructure.

You've referenced future planning. Tell us a little bit about the things that need to be done to prepare for and to deal with these storms like Fiona and some of the other examples you referenced earlier.

[Will Balser]

I think one of the most important things is an inventory of the most at-risk infrastructure, as was highlighted earlier. Your sewage and water treatment plants are often at the lowest point in town. When you look at a place like Sackville, New Brunswick, or Truro, Nova Scotia, you see that most of the town is right on sea level anyway, so your gravity-fed system is going to absolutely be the lowest point in town. Those can cost tens of millions of dollars in development and are developed over decades.

If we're talking about updating plants or developing new plants now, we absolutely need to be building them in safer areas, but also creating inventories of at-risk infrastructure, because there's a huge lack of information right now about what is most at-risk. Is it at risk from erosion, overland flooding, inland flooding, wind events or other climatic events? There's really a lack of information to even start to figure out what to address first.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Rogers.

Mr. Barsalou-Duval, the floor is now yours for two and a half minutes.