Transport Committee on May 4th, 2023

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Earlier, we were discussing municipalities' infrastructure needs. Obviously, it would be ideal if infrastructure were able to absorb the current consequences of climate change. However, sometimes we have no choice, such as when there is a natural disaster. Unfortunately, the army sometimes needs to intervene.

As was mentioned earlier, there are some financial shortcomings. For example, it came up that the money is in Ottawa more than it's in the municipalities or provinces. However, the federal government's practice is to bill for the army's services when it responds to a natural disaster. Do you think that this approach encourages the government to call on the army, or is it the other way around?

Imagine that I am a decision-maker. The dilemma is: The budget is tight, but there’s an emergency.

Perhaps you are more aware of the realities of municipalities and local governments in that respect.

[Matt Gemmel]

Thank you for the question.

You mentioned earlier the flooding in Charlevoix and other regions of Quebec, and I wanted to acknowledge that. I heard the mayor of Baie-Saint-Paul on the radio this weekend, and it's really devastating what the community is experiencing. As you mentioned earlier, it's all too frequent now. It's not a matter of “if”, it's a matter of where and how bad it is.

In terms of military intervention, that's not something that FCM has a position on. We aren't, as an association, involved in the practical details of emergency management. Those decisions are left to individual municipalities, provincial governments and the federal government.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Balser, the committee recently undertook a study on shoreline erosion and the impact of commercial shipping. During that study, several witnesses emphasized the importance of using nature-based solutions, which is also what you have been saying up until now. They said that if someone wants to use nature-based solutions to stop their land from eroding, no federal government funding exists for private initiatives.

What can you tell us about that?

[Will Balser]

Yes, I would absolutely agree that the lack of inclusion of nature-based solutions strictly on a funding basis has been widespread at every level of government: federal, municipal and provincial. I also think that the existing regulations really only address the use of armour rock in sea walls, traditional grey infrastructure. Right now, particularly in the province of Nova Scotia, as I'm aware, there's really no space under the existing armour rocking and coastal defence regulations under DNR that would allow the development of even small green shores or living shoreline projects, because they often have to project out into the water below the high-water line. There's really no permitting structure for that right now.

It's far easier and far more available to your average landowner to, like I say, throw rocks into the ocean or build a big concrete wall. That's what they see their neighbours doing. It's not even in the zeitgeist, I would say, for the average landowner to include nature-based solutions, never mind provincial, municipal and federal infrastructure projects.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

I have 20 seconds remaining.

Mr. Balser, do you believe there is a need for more training or information on the existence of nature-based solutions and the option of using them?

[Will Balser]

Absolutely, we need more funding and more training at every level of government, especially when it comes to infrastructure staff and policy development staff. Yes, at the end of the day, it's funding. Nothing about this is going to be cheap, but obviously we can look at nature-based solutions as being the more financially responsible solution.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Barsalou-Duval.

Next we have Mr. Bachrach.

Mr. Bachrach, the floor is yours. You have two and a half minutes.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Gemmel, earlier in your remarks, you mentioned the need to better integrate climate risk into government decision-making. I know that the federal government has had a long history of attempts at this with the climate lens for infrastructure, which has now gone through two or three iterations.

Could you speak to the current state of federal government's climate risk assessment in infrastructure decision-making? Then, could you speak to what FCM's recommendations would be to strengthen that framework?

[Matt Gemmel]

FCM has certainly been involved with Infrastructure Canada in the development of the climate lens. For everyone's benefit, this would be federal infrastructure funding requiring funding recipients to conduct an assessment of either the emissions or the climate risk and vulnerability associated with the infrastructure.

There are a couple of points on this. It's really important to set the requirements or expectations from the federal government in a way that is realistic and in line with the capacity that municipal governments have to be able to comply with those criteria. It's not really in anyone's interest, other than the consultants', to have municipalities have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and many months of planning time to comply with a climate lens that's really over and above what is needed to assess climate risk and vulnerability assessments.

While we support those criteria, they need to be designed in a way that is commensurate with municipal capacity. Certainly around climate risk, I mentioned earlier in response to one of the other questions that we can't be building infrastructure, even if it's not disaster mitigation infrastructure, in the same way as we have. It needs to comply with higher codes and standards. The climate lens is one way to ensure that federal funding is going towards projects that have that consideration built in.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

You have 20 seconds, Mr. Bachrach.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I want to ask Will Balser about his statement earlier that we shouldn't be building in known risk areas. This seems like a no-brainer. What's the federal government's role in ensuring that recommendation is followed?

[Will Balser]

Again, when we're looking at requirements for the dispensing of funding for infrastructure projects, I don't think that it's outside of the scope of any environmental impact assessment that you do with any federally funded infrastructure project to require that you're not tramping on sensitive ecosystems or building in a known geomorphic flood plain, a known area that will be inundated by sea level rise within the next 50 years. I don't think that's outside the scope or existing knowledge base at all.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bachrach.

Next we have Mr. Strahl.

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

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Thank you very much.

I've certainly appreciated the testimony that we've heard today, especially from fellow British Columbians who experienced the severe impacts of the atmospheric river events of November 2021.

Mayor Goetz, I'll start with you. It's kind of shocking to learn that 16 or 18 months later, Merritt is less protected, I would argue, than it was back in November. You say that it's still at the same state, but you've indicated that some of your diking infrastructure has not been able to be rebuilt.

When I was talking with my communities that were affected by that event, specifically the district of Hope, I was very frustrated that the senior levels of government would not allow them, when they were doing emergency work to repair something like a washed-out culvert or road or bridge, etc., to build back better, if I can put it that way. The funding and the approvals were only to replace what had previously been there.

Were there examples of that in Merritt, where at the time when you were doing the emergency work to replace the infrastructure that was destroyed or washed away, etc., you could have built it up to a higher standard but government regulations prevented you from doing that?

[Michael Goetz]

First of all, thank you for the question.

I'm going to have to preface this with the fact that I became mayor this past November. I was not involved with the flood reconstruction. I was just an ordinary citizen at the time.

When we do talk about the situation we have with the diking, in two of our areas we still are using temporary military dikes. Had we been allowed to actually go in and repair those to the point where those citizens could feel comfortable now...because the temporary dikes are now being tested for a second straight freshet. We're a little nervous that these are going to be the exit points. It would have been nice to be able to go in right away with our own equipment and build those up to protect the citizens in that area.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Maybe I'll ask the same question to Mayor Coyne, who I know was on the ground when the flood was happening.

I know that certainly in the Abbotsford area, Sumas Prairie, Chilliwack and Hope, when the emergency was upon us, quite frankly there was no time for heavy-handed government regulations. People did what was necessary to protect the community. We saw road builders and pipeline builders and everyone leap into action to do what it took. It was just accepted that this was the way it was, but once the bureaucracy got back up on its feet, it started to put in those roadblocks to doing what was necessary to protect those communities.

Mayor Coyne, have you seen that situation where there was an inability when the repairs were taking place to build up to the new flood levels, or build up to the new regulations, because the senior levels of government made it clear that they wouldn't fund anything more than building it back to the way it was?

[Spencer Coyne]

Yes. We had that exact fight in the middle of it. One of the sections of our dike breached. It was built by the province after the flood in 1995, so it was up to the most standard code and it breached. We brought in teams right away. We brought in engineers the next morning. Copper Mountain Mine provided us free rock, tested free rock. The local logging contractors rebuilt it, but we were told at the time that it had to be temporary. We stood toe to toe against the provincial government to make sure that this wasn't going to be the case.

Communities know what needs to be done. When I talk about the need for federal intervention, it's not that we want the federal government to be there with this massive bureaucracy behind it. We need all levels of government to trust us. We know what needs to be done in our communities. We do the best job that we can do for them. We come at it with an environmental lens in everything. We do not look down the road and say, “Forget about a generation from now.” That's our priority.

When we ask for help, we need everybody to understand that when we're asking—it's hard to ask for help—you need to trust us, because it's not frivolous.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Strahl.

The next speaker is Mr. Iacono.

Mr. Iacono, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My first two questions are directed to the representative from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

Could you tell us about the FCM's policy submissions to provincial governments on the types of standards you recommend applying to municipal infrastructure? What reaction did you generate?

[Matt Gemmel]

Thanks for the question.

The mandate of FCM is entirely federal, though we do work in close collaboration with our provincial and territorial counterparts.

In Quebec, we collaborate with the Union des municipalités du Québec and with the Fédération québécoise des municipalités.

We work closely with them, but we leave the provincial advocacy to those associations and the others in all provinces and territories.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Perfect.

Could you explain how large versus small municipalities or rural municipalities are affected differently by climate change? Could you also tell us about their infrastructure needs?

How can the federal government take those factors into account to make access to funding more equitable in the future?

[Matt Gemmel]

Thank you very much. That's a great question.

I think one of the key elements there is that communities of all sizes are experiencing acute impacts from climate change. What's important in federal funding programs, as we've heard today—and I think it has been a theme of the discussion throughout the last hour—is that we need to be prioritizing investment based on risk. It's not based on the absolute project size or on population. It needs to be based on risk and reducing risk, starting with communities that have been impacted by climate events, which I'm glad to hear has been emphasized today.

One other point that has been raised today and that I want to emphasize is that smaller municipalities have even less financial capacity, so in some federal infrastructure programs, FCM has called for a higher federal contribution for smaller communities. We feel it is appropriate. Different programs need to be designed in different ways, but when it comes to climate adaptation programming, that may be something we need to take a closer look at as well.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you.

My next question is for the two mayors.

Could you each share what the most pressing infrastructure needs in your community are, and what the long-term needs are?

[Spencer Coyne]

Mike's telling me to go first.

The most immediate right now for us is probably our diking system. We are still exactly where we were before.

Like they have in Merritt, we have temporary works that were put on top of our system by the military. They still stand today. We have replaced our water lines and we've replaced sewer lines. We still have one sewer line that needs to be replaced, and we're working on a brand new water treatment system that we've had to remove from the flood plain.

The next big move is the diking system, and we need to make that so it's more climate.... The future atmospheric rivers are going to be worse than what we have experienced, so we need to be able to take that into consideration. We're no longer planning on a 200-year scale. We're planning on a 500-year scale, so I think that's the biggest thing.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Would that be short term or long term?