Mr. Speaker, I want to salute my fellow British Columbian for her comments today and her sympathy for all those who have been affected by the flooding in our great province.
The hon. member talked about needing to do things differently. Tonight, I know that we are going to debate lots of different ideas and I do hope we hit some big ideas. For example, I have heard from small municipalities about the DFAA, the disaster finance assistance program, and they cannot afford the 20% that is expected, while senior levels of government are expected to do 80%. What does the member think about that?
The member also talked about empowering communities. The last time the federal government arranged with the Province of British Columbia was in the gas tax agreement of 2014. I think there is an area that we can improve upon. Tim Roberts, who is an area director for rural Keremeos, has suggested that small regional districts and municipalities should be able to use some of the leftover gas tax toward flood mitigation and fire mitigation, because many times there is interface area where there is fuel that can easily be removed if they were to hire students over the summer to do so.
Can the member comment on some of the big ideas, but also some of the small ideas that are so important to help our communities adapt to climate change?