Transport Committee on May 30th, 2023

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you so much.

I'm going to be asking my first questions of Ms. Tull.

I want to talk a little bit about modernizing the way that we do infrastructure, and it was mentioned today, grey to green. I want to focus on this “green”. I know one narrative that's long-standing in the infrastructure and housing realms is that it's cost-prohibitive to have green or natural infrastructure. I want to remove that long-standing narrative. I want us to maybe start thinking a bit differently.

Ms. Tull, you mentioned the idea that some of these natural infrastructure projects are happening already and that they've been happening in B.C. in our watersheds. I wonder if you could share the cost savings that you mentioned, like maybe an example of a project that's been done, what role the NGO played in that and how that's saving residents and governments money.

[Coree Tull]

Thank you very much for the question.

I'm going to actually pass this over to my colleagues, as they can speak directly to some examples on the ground where they've seen this work through investments and saving opportunities.

Zita, may I pass it to you?

[Zita Botelho, Director, Watersheds BC, BC Watershed Security Coalition]

Good afternoon. Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here. I'd like to acknowledge that I come to you from the unceded territory of the Lekwungen-speaking people, who are the Songhees, the Saanich and Esquimalt nations.

Through the Healthy Watersheds Initiative, which funded 27 million dollars' worth of work, and the indigenous watersheds initiative, which has funded 15 million dollars' worth of projects, we have seen investments in what I'll refer to as sort of low-tech restoration work. The activities were not massive infrastructure, for which we see multi-million dollar investments, but involved community organizations and local governments working together to restore riparian areas and wetlands.

Coree mentioned McKay Creek in North Vancouver. These kinds of techniques are literally about planting willow stakes. We have a project in the Chilako region of northern B.C. near Nechako in the territory of the Carrier Sekani. Under a million dollars of restoration work has happened there to deal with flooding impacts and also to help restore salmon habitat, for which the costs per square metre were significantly less than those for any kind of hard infrastructure work that would happen in that region. It's an example of literally putting stakes in the ground and having the data to be able to do that work.

We also saw work in the Peach Creek and Hooge Wetland, where there was the same kind of issue of a wetland being restored at a significantly lower cost than would be the case for any hard infrastructure. There need to be ongoing investments in that in terms of maintenance, but the results were significant in terms of flood attenuation during the epic floods of 2021.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you so much.

Just talking about those smaller projects that involve the community, municipalities and indigenous nations, the involvement of indigenous partners has been missing from quite a bit of the research and even some of the reporting federally.

Ms. Tull, you made comments about bold federal investment in natural infrastructure. Could you just let me know what that means to you and how we could involve municipalities and indigenous nations in smaller projects like that?

[Coree Tull]

Absolutely. What we have seen from the investments that have happened in British Columbia is that partnership is critical. No one government or community can do it alone, and we need to see that partnership among nations, community organizations and provincial and federal governments in order to do this work. I think the work that has been happening through the B.C. Wildlife Federation has been exceptional in bringing these communities together to see these impacts on the ground.

Neil, would you speak to some of the work you folks have been doing?

[Neil Fletcher, Director of Conservation Stewardship, B.C. Wildlife Federation, BC Watershed Security Coalition]

Sure. Thank you, Coree.

My name is Neil Fletcher. I am the director of conservation stewardship for the B.C. Wildlife Federation. I'm calling you from the unceded Coast Salish territory in New Westminster, B.C.

In 2021, we hired over a hundred people, working with seven other organizations, including Ducks Unlimited, Nature Trust, Nature Conservancy and a number of other non-profits, as well as a Kootenay indigenous band. Throughout that year, we certainly worked on a lot of different projects. There were 200 across the province.

On the point of collaborating and getting some of this work done, I think one of the salient points is that recently we've been involved in a process for watershed planning in the Nicola with both government-to-government and first nation-to-provincial government planning. There have been tremendous impacts on infrastructure in that region from the atmospheric river flood event of 2021. The ones taking leadership right now are a lot of the first nations in the area, which want to listen to the groups that are doing the work. There are pipelines going through. There are new highways being punched through. There are a lot of moving parts, but currently it's the leadership from the first nations that is bringing people together to talk about planning and to put the puzzle pieces together. People operate in—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Fletcher.

Thank you, Ms. Zarrillo.

Next, we have Dr. Lewis.

Dr. Lewis, the floor is yours. You have five minutes.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses who are here today.

My question is for Mr. Dupuis.

I'm concerned that the federal programs are not sufficiently structured for smaller municipalities and rural and remote communities to access them. It appears there's a lack of accessible funding for communities like mine, and I think like yours, in the disaster and resiliency funding. For example, it's a $1-million threshold for the DMAF to be triggered. That's an extremely high threshold for a small community like my own, in Haldimand—Norfolk, to meet if they need some sort of federal funding for adaptation—for example, for building or for what you described with ice and bridges, etc.

Could you please comment on what you are hearing and perhaps some of your experiences with respect to smaller municipalities? Are there any suggestions you have on how we could solve that problem?

[Sylvain Dupuis]

Saint-Ours is a small municipality. When we apply for federal programs, we often get stonewalled. The response is often unfavourable, for all sorts of reasons.

We applied to just about every conceivable program that was available, whether it was related to culture, communications, infrastructure or adaptation, and we rarely got a positive response.

One of the most obvious solutions to this problem would be for grants to be better balanced between large and small municipalities in Canada. That would give us a better chance of getting at least some grants. At the moment, it is a bit of a game that favours the municipalities that submit their projects the fastest, rather than the ones that are the most ready.

Funding is never enough to meet the needs, no matter which government is in power. The reality is that it's hard to get grants after you apply. These grants are often the lever that enables our small municipalities to get major projects under way.

The population of Saint-Ours is only 1,700, and I cannot always raise municipal taxes. That's where the support of the federal government and the provincial government plays a key role. It is a lever that enables us to comply with certain standards. We absolutely need it.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Do you find you have sufficient resources to be able to put in an application that would even put you in the running to potentially get some of this funding, or do you believe that something needs to change to make it more equitable for smaller municipalities to be able to get to the table and to be considered for some of these funds?

[Sylvain Dupuis]

We have all the resources we need to apply for the funding. That isn't the problem. What's needed, in my view, is a way to ensure that funding envelopes are set aside for municipalities, or provinces. That would allow for continuity and ensure some fairness for smaller municipalities.

Of course, political games have no place in it. The funding has to address the demand, and that's where the programs can be adjusted so that all municipalities have the same opportunity.

When a municipality's funding request is denied, projects tend to be delayed by four or five years. For a small municipality, the delay often stretches to 15 years. Large municipalities inherently have more means, so they can wait two or three years until they get the funding, whereas small municipalities suffer for longer.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

My next question is for Mr. Lee.

As you know, we are in a housing crisis. The cost of housing, rent payments and mortgage payments has doubled. The availability of affordable homes is scarce. All of these things being considered, how does this larger systemic housing problem in Canada affect the issues we're talking about today, when we're talking about the resiliency of housing and infrastructure, and we're talking about making it easier for homeowners to relocate out of a risk area and move after, say, a floor or a fire event?

[Kevin Lee]

That's the big public policy question of the day, isn't it?

I think when it comes to affordability of individual housing units, as we look to this.... We've talked a bit about subsidies. It's going to be really important, when we look at regulatory changes, to make sure that the regulatory changes are the right ones and that we're not creating gold-plated codes but codes that make the most sense for the situation. That's going to be really critical.

So much of this is reliant on larger infrastructure. We need to make sure that it's not going to be just new housing units that bear the cost of these types of changes in communities, but that it's shared across existing communities that are going to benefit as well.

There are a lot of challenges.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lee, and thank you, Dr. Lewis.

Next, we have Ms. O'Connell.

Ms. O'Connell, the floor is yours. You have five minutes.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for being here today.

Ms. Eyquem, I have some questions for you. The Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation, the organization you're with, was quoted in a Global News article on September 29, 2022, on some of the issues around climate change and adaptation. I believe it was one of your colleagues, Blair Feltmate, if I'm making the connection correctly. Part of what was expressed in this article—and it may not be in front of you, so I'm not expecting you to know it verbatim—was essentially about the devastation that was caused by hurricane Fiona. At the time of this article, it talked about “at least three deaths” being attributed to that storm. It also talked about a couple of points. One was that avoiding climate change and the severe storms would be ideal, but that the adaptation and mitigation for dealing with these storms are obviously going to be crucial—which is what we're all talking about right now.

I find it particularly frustrating, because I think that's exactly correct and we need the debate to be happening. Just yesterday in the House, in response to discussing climate change and our mitigation approaches, a member of the Conservative Party actually referred to a reference about hurricane Fiona as well as the fires going on as a “stupid guilt trip”. I find that really frustrating when we are talking about the very real impacts of climate change.

You spoke in your opening remarks about not only the very real cost, but the health and, in some of these cases, the death that is created as a result. I want to speak in that vein about the very real life impacts, and how referring to it as a “stupid guilt trip” in talking about how to mitigate climate change...and then also how to mitigate the infrastructure we need. Can you talk a little bit more about the real costs on the ground when these severe weather events happen?

[Joanna Eyquem]

Yes. Thank you for the question.

In terms of 2022, we are at $3.1 billion in insured losses for that year, which was the third-highest year on record. Over the last few years, we've been over $2 billion in just what's insured, knowing that people who are in high-risk flood zones actually can't get insurance. What is not insured is three to four times that amount, so the costs are very real.

On the business case for adaptation, Public Safety's figures are three to eight dollars, so that's including the avoided damages. When you include additional benefits, it goes to $13 or $15. Actually, for a project I'm familiar with in Percé, where they did a beach nourishment project to reduce coastal flooding and erosion, the benefit costs were 68:1. With adaptation, there is the cost reduction, but lots of the projects that we're actually putting in place are also to achieve additional objectives. If we value all of those benefits, the business case is very clear, especially if we're actually valuing the services that nature provides, which we're not doing in a routine manner at the moment.

The business case for adaptation is very clear, and the health impacts.... Not to be indelicate, but when people die because of flooding and wildfire, we talk about a few people dying. It's not as many as for extreme heat—619 people—and that was in good conditions, meaning there was no power outage. If there's a power outage during an extreme heat event in Canada, thousands of people will die. We saw, in France, 30,000 people died. This is what we're looking at in the future. We really need to adapt with urgency.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you.

You also mentioned the uninsured. In my previous municipal life, what I saw sometimes was that after one extreme weather event, even if it wasn't to the extremes we've seen with hurricane Fiona or the fires we're seeing right now, even after smaller events, residents and municipalities were then no longer insured for the future. Do you have any data, or are you involved in any of those conversations around what happens next for some of these at-risk communities?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

We need a 20-second response, please.

[Joanna Eyquem]

What I'm most familiar with is that in Quebec we have a threshold over the life of the house; there's a certain threshold where people will get assistance. After that threshold, they will not get assistance.

There's a threshold for rebuilding as well. We're actually seeing that the social fabric of communities is diminished after disasters, because some houses are not rebuilt. Some houses are left kind of as islands. In Pointe-Gatineau, for example, there are streets with just a few houses left.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Ms. O'Connell.

Thank you, Ms. Eyquem.

Mr. Barsalou‑Duval, you have two and a half minutes. Go ahead.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to pick up the discussion on the Saint‑Ours dam, which is currently owned by Parks Canada. You said it wouldn't take a significant investment to be able to build a full bridge connecting the two sides of the river, since the infrastructure was originally designed to allow for that movement.

However, the climate change support programs that the federal government has introduced in recent years focus on natural infrastructure and adaptation. Very often, the idea is to adapt existing infrastructure, make minor changes or implement vegetation-based solutions, for instance.

In this case, ice bridges are no longer an option in the winter, so you need an alternative to the infrastructure that existed until now. The goal is the same, but the idea is to use existing federal infrastructure.

First, do you think federal programs need to be adjusted, or at the very least, should they be more flexible? Second, should the government, as a general policy, be more open to allowing small communities to use its infrastructure in other ways?

[Sylvain Dupuis]

You're right. The biggest challenge is always finding the entry point to set those good ideas in motion. Keep in mind, this was something the federal government wanted to do in 1982. The federal leadership was already there. It just takes some renewed leadership. What's more, the project has the support of the towns, the regional county municipalities and the provincial government.

I think the government needs to be more open to these types of ideas, to be bold and to encourage innovation. In many cases, overly restrictive program requirements prevent us from including innovative projects. That's the biggest challenge to proposing this type of project or getting it back on track.

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

I have just 10 seconds left, so I will leave it there.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Mr. Barsalou‑Duval.

Next, we have Ms. Zarrillo.

Ms. Zarrillo, the floor is yours. You have two and a half minutes.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you so much.

I want to go back to Ms. Tull on the $100 million in the watershed security fund that was announced in British Columbia. I note that the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs vice-president, Chief Don Tom, was saying that it would be imperative for the federal government to at least match this investment of $100 million.

I'm interested to know if the federal government has come to the table with that money, and if there have been conversations about the federal government matching that funding for the watershed security fund.