Pre-paid debit cards on way for flood victims
alberta vows $1B in reconstruction spending
CALGARY • Alberta is handing out pre-loaded debit cards to displaced people and pledging $1-billion in reconstruction cash to affected communities after the worst flooding in the province’s history.
Premier Alison Redford said Monday the commitments mean the province won’t balance its budget as originally planned. The province will offer the debit cards — $1,250 per adult and $500 per child — to help floodaffected households manage immediate costs. Eligibility criteria for the scheme and distribution plans are still
being finalized, the province said, though it hopes to have the cards in place by midweek.
“The world changed on Thursday,” Ms. Redford told reporters Monday, four days after the deluge began. “This is like nothing we’ve ever faced before, and we’re going to respond to the challenge.”
Ms. Redford said money would be available “in very short order” — within 10 days to two weeks, she said. The premier spoke at a press conference that overlapped with a regularly scheduled media briefing held by Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi, who was joined by federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, the MP for Calgary-Southeast.
Mr. Nenshi described the province’s $1-billion commitment as a “wonderful” start. “But I suspect that number will have to go higher,” he told reporters.
Under existing disaster relief programs, the federal government repays up to 90% of eligible costs. Estimates of flood-related damages remain preliminary, but the tally could climb into the billions of dollars. BMO Capital Markets analyst Tom MacKinnon put the figure between $3-billion and $5-billion. Losses after insurance could reach $3.75-billion, he said in a note to clients.
With 23 communities still under a state of emergency across southern Alberta, Mr. Kenney said it’s too early to predict how much the federal share of costs would be. “I don’t think we should be rushing to some kind of dollar figure,” he said at the briefing.
The economic fallout from the flood is unlikely to be fully understood for weeks, perhaps months. But it is liable to be hefty.
Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd., whose crews responded to 40 high-water incidents along its tracks in recent days, has yet to put a dollar figure on estimated damages, spokesman Ed Greenberg said.
Some of CP’s customers, however, including fertilizer maker Agrium Inc., expected shipments to be delayed because of mudslides and high water.
Walmart Canada Corp., which operates a distribution centre for Western Canada north of Calgary, was shipping additional merchandise to its Alberta stores and re-routing others because of the flood,
spokeswoman Felicia Fefer said in an email.
Robert Kavcic, a senior economist at BMO, noted that Alberta comprises 6.5% of the national economy. With tourism expected to dry up and construction and retail activity effectively on hold, the flood-related hit could shave one-tenth of one percentage point, or roughly $2-billion, from Canada’s annualized GDP growth in June, he said.
“That’s just the initial negative impact,” he said in an interview on Monday. “Of course when the water’s all gone and consumers go out to replace stuff that’s damaged, that could be offset completely.”
One exception is tourism, he said. “Obviously that’s going to be pretty hard hit,” Mr. Kavcic said. “And that’s something you don’t make up.”
Officials with the Calgary Stampede vowed Monday to press on with the annual rodeo “come hell or high water,” but much of the festival grounds was inundated with water during the worst of
last week’s deluge.
The Saddledome, which hosts concerts during the festival and seats more than 19,000 people, was filled with water as high as the eighth row at one point.
“It’s a mess,” Calgary Flames chief executive Ken King told reporters over the weekend. “It is a total loss of the event level.”
On Monday, Prince William and his wife Kate wrote Prime Minister Stephen Harper to pass along their sympathies.
“Catherine and I have been saddened to learn of the deaths and destruction caused by the unprecedented flooding throughout the province of Alberta,” said the note released by Mr. Harper’s office.