Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my constituents I would like to raise a concern today about the federal disaster relief program.
Although the flooding in northern Alberta did not receive the attention that the flood in the Saguenay did, the damage to homes, crops and businesses was no less devastating to those affected.
In spite of this, many of my constituents have been denied disaster relief funding to compensate them for the loss of a lifetime's worth of work simply because they were forced to pursue off-farm income to keep their farming operations viable.
I and my constituents believe that if the federal government is going to have a program to compensate Canadians for losses due to natural disasters, then all Canadians should be equally compensated for losses incurred.
The people affected by this biased criteria are only victims of circumstance and would have been full time farm operators if they had had a choice. The damage sustained is no less devastating to them and their families.
I have written to Emergency Preparedness Canada and to the Minister of National Defence and received no response. I ask the minister to re-examine the eligibility criteria as described under the disaster relief program.