Flood mitigation funds for High River a non-priority

Federal cash already spoken for in 2006

EDMONTON — Alberta didn’t receive money from Ottawa for flood mitigation following the 2005 High River flood because the provincial government didn’t make it a priority, a federal official says.

“Infrastructure Canada did receive a request for funding assistance for flood mitigation strategies for High River in 2006. However, funding under programs at the time had already been committed to other priorities requested by Alberta,” Infrastructure Canada spokeswoman Jen Powroz said Thursday in an e-mail.

“Alberta chose not to select this as a priority project in subsequent years, and no additional requests for funding for flood mitigation infrastructure for High River were received by Infrastructure Canada.”

Powroz said the federal department provides money for projects that provinces, territories and municipalities have identified as priorities.

She noted infrastructure for disaster mitigation is eligible for funding under several of the department’s programs.

Earlier this week, Alberta’s former Municipal Affairs Minister Ray Danyluk blamed the lack of mitigation funding from Ottawa for the PC government’s failure to implement the $300-million recommendations of a flood mitigation report seven years ago.

Completed after the 2005 flooding in southern Alberta, the report was conducted by a committee chaired by then MLA George Groeneveld.

Danyluk said Thursday it is misleading for the federal government to now say the province should have used federal infrastructure dollars marked for municipal projects like water systems and sewers to instead build dams and reservoirs.

“That Build Canada fund was used by municipalities to build projects that were necessary,” Danyluk said.

“It was very hard for municipalities to use their funding for mitigation projects when at the same time there was a National Disaster mitigation strategy in place.”

We just weren’t successful with the feds. Maybe they will listen now. RAY DANYLUK

Alberta tried repeatedly to acquire cash through the federal disaster mitigation strategy, but it was “damn near impossible to access,” Danyluk said.

He said Ottawa’s contention the province didn’t make mitigation a priority is akin to suggesting the province could have built new hospitals if only it had fired more teachers.

Danyluk said he was “continually having discussions” with federal counterparts, including then Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan, Transportation, Infrastructure and Communities Minister John Baird and Minister of State for Transport Rob Merrifield.

“We just weren’t successful with the feds,” Danyluk said. “Maybe they will listen now.”

Powroz said the new Building Canada plan is expected to provide $53.5 billion in new and existing funding for provincial, territorial and municipal infrastructure.

Disaster mitigation will continue to be an eligible category for investment under the $14 billion in the plan that Ottawa has allotted for 2014-15, as well as from the $22-billion Gas Tax Fund, she added.

Premier Alison Redford is pushing for a national disaster mitigation funding plan with her premier colleagues at the Council of the Federation conference in Niagaraon-the-Lake, Ont. this week, but her efforts have drawn criticism from the Alberta Liberals.

Calgary Liberal MLA Kent Hehr says the Redford Conservatives call for a nationwide program ignores previous agreements, like the national disaster mitigation strategy devised in 2008.

“She can tout a call-to-action from her national coun- terparts, but she isn’t saying anything new,” Hehr said in a statement. “It just reflects her government’s ineptitude.”

Speaking to reporters at the conference Thursday, Redford said disaster mitigation is an important issue and she will raise it with the other premiers today.

“We want to make sure that the federal government understands they have a responsibility to work with us, to share the costs with respect to natural disaster mitigation,” she said, noting the issue also came up Thursday during a broader infrastructure discussion.

“We want to isolate this. We know it’s a discussion that has to happen, that it has to be an inter-provincial discussion.”