Ford’s cuts to flood control are all wet

A government that slashes the flood-control budget just days before the arrival of the annual spring floods is either dangerously determined or disturbingly dim.

In the case of Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives, both descriptions apply when it comes to the cuts they made this month to 36 provincial conservation authorities around the same time torrential rains started falling across Eastern Canada.

Ontarians battling swollen and overflowing rivers from Ottawa to Bracebridge and east of North Bay last week suddenly awakened to the unpleasant fact that as climate change is making floods more frequent and severe in this part of the world, their premier is making it harder for them to protect themselves.

That effective, reliable protection is needed more than ever. Across vast swaths of Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick, residents have been forced out of damaged homes while emergency crews struggled to stop rising waters and withstand their destructive powers.

Yet there in writing, in the PC government’s 2019-2020 budget and sticking out like the flashing light on a fire truck, is that 50 per cent cut to the conservation authorities’ funding for flood management.

That works out to a $3.7-million reduction in provincial support. Although that may not seem like lot of money and the PC government is trying to downplay its impact, the Conservation Authority of Ontario said the cuts’ impact will be felt immediately.

This has to go down as one of Ford’s most pennywise, pound-foolish calls. And the Tories’ excuse that they have to slay the deficit dragon doesn’t work. To govern is to choose. And to choose is to set priorities. Public safety belongs at the top of any to-do list.

Creating a provincewide system of conservation authorities was largely a response to the devastation wreaked by hurricane Hazel in 1954. That storm killed 81 people in Ontario and caused $1.3 million in property damage in today’s dollars.

The disaster taught this province hard lessons, one of which was to empower conservation authorities to ban development from flood plains, educate the public and better monitor and control waterways that can rise to terrifying levels when heavy rains follow the spring melt of snow and ice.

The strategy has largely succeeded. But the impact of climate change is being felt, even as the resources to respond are being limited. For years, scientists have warned that greenhouse gases related to human activity are resulting in more deadly heat waves, harsher droughts in some areas along with heavier rainfalls in others.

We’re witnessing those rainfalls now, in real time. Ottawa declared a state of emergency on Thursday and the army was sent in on Friday. Quebec officials moved residents along the Rouge River to safety fearing a hydro dam might collapse. Who knows what’s coming next year or the years after?

Ontario should be strengthening its conservation authorities and emergency services while enhancing flood-control infrastructure — the precise opposite of what the latest budget is doing. And it should immediately assess the impact of its cuts on flood control.

Just as important, this government needs to realize that trying to limit carbon emissions and slow or reverse climate change is the best response to the new normal of extreme weather. Regrettably, while Ford has scrapped the carbon tax introduced by the previous Liberal government, he has yet to produce a coherent action plan to manage what is arguably the environmental crisis of our times.

So get used to this forecast for future Ontario springtimes: Extreme rainfall, increased flooding, high risk.