Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague from Victoria on her excellent presentation on the budget. It was a pleasure to listen to her talk about the issues that are important in Victoria and many of those issues are the same ones that are incredibly important in my riding of New Westminster—Coquitlam.
For instance, we now have homeless people living on the banks of the Fraser River. It is incredible. People are now living underneath the SkyTrain stations. I never thought I would see times like these in British Columbia.
The issue of child care is also an important issue in our community where parents have actually been getting together and having regional meetings to demand action by the government.
My question has to do with flood control. Numerous reports have been done, going back a number of years, on the potential of big floods along the Fraser River. In fact, when the Fraser River flooded in 1948 it devastated all the communities along its banks. Since that time there has been an incredible build up of communities and homes and people are living and working along the banks of the Fraser who were never there. In those days it was mostly agricultural land.
If we were to have a flood today on the Fraser River anywhere near what happened in 1948, the conservative estimates are $6 billion in flood damage. The previous Liberal government pulled out of any support for debris control along the Fraser River and we have seen no action by the present Conservative government, although it has put money into other regions of the country for waterworks, to do anything for British Columbia and the Fraser River. I would ask my friend for her opinion on that.