Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola for allowing me to expand on that. Something we should be doing is learning from these disasters. They are very painful and the least we can do is learn lessons from them.
In the case of Grand Forks, much of the downtown area and a low-lying neighbourhood on the other side of the Kettle River were flooded and the city and the surrounding regional district applied for funding. They received $20 million from the federal government and another $40 million or so from the provincial government to help rebuild the city.
They decided to ensure this would not happen again. They redesigned the dikes along the river to flow so that if the river flooded, and the really low areas almost certainly would flood again, there would be no homes there. They had to buy out the people who lived there. It was very divisive and painful for the community. People had to give up their homes and often, because the funding was not as adequate as a lot of people thought it should be, they did not have enough money to buy another home in the city. It was very difficult for the city council and very difficult for the people involved.
To ensure people do not have to go through that again, we have to look at designing our cities so neighbourhoods will not flood in the first place and use innovative ways to ensure we can make our communities safer in the future.