Federal disaster aid for Fraser Valley floods, landslides taking too long: B.C. MP
The federal government estimates it will need to pay almost $3.4 billion for its share of the disaster recovery bills for flooding and landslides that devastated British Columbia’s Fraser Valley in November 2021.
But more than two years after that disaster occurred, only about 40 per cent of that has been paid.
“Our communities need this funding now,” said Brad Vis, the Conservative MP for the sprawling, crescent-shaped riding of MissionMatsqui-Fraser Canyon.
The need is massive, Vis said in an interview: from farmers looking to recover lost blueberry crops and rebuild devastated dairy farms, to homeowners whose houses were washed away, to local and provincial efforts to restore roads, bridges and culverts.
One year would be a “reasonable amount of time” for disaster money to flow, Vis said, allowing for engineering plans to be drafted and reviewed by both the local and federal governments.
Any longer and the area remains even more vulnerable to the next storm, he added. Indeed, less than a year would be ideal, “because we don’t know what’s going to happen the year after.”
Southern B.C. was hit by an atmospheric river - the kind of rainstorm that triggered the 2021 disaster - in both 2022 and 2023, and fresh downpours prompted another flood warning in January.
But some of the area’s infrastructure still hasn’t been fixed, Vis said.
In 2022, an advisory panel - tasked by Ottawa to guide a national plan to better prepare for the impact of climate change - also recommended a timeline of a year or less to ensure disaster-hit communities are promptly “made whole.”
But an analysis of data on the federal Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements program, or DFAA, shows it takes on average seven years for all disaster aid to flow - and as long as 10 to 15 years in several cases.
The data was provided by the office of Emergency Preparedness Minister Harjit Sajjan. Later this year Sajjan is set to publish an updated DFAA program, following several years of consultation.
Among the changes expected in that overhaul are a focus on flowing money faster, as well as projects that don’t just restore previous infrastructure but make them more resilient to future disasters.
“We know that we need to do more and we are,” Sajjan told a security and defence conference last week in Ottawa.
The program was created in 1970 to better share the recovery costs for natural disasters between the federal government and provinces and territories.
The provinces or territories pay a deductible based on their population, and the federal government pays an increasing share of the bills the higher they go. On average, Ottawa funds about 82 per cent of the recovery costs following a disaster.
The program covers some costs for governments, private homeowners, farmers and businesses, and can include everything from evacuations and emergency medical and security needs to rebuilding and cleanup.
Between 1970 and 2023, 283 disasters have resulted in claims under DFAA. About half have been for flooding, and almost one-third for rainstorms or major storms such as hurricanes.