Fraser Valley flooding aid taking too long, MP charges

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 the 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 Mission-Matsqui-Fraser Canyon.

The need is massive, Vis said. There are farmers looking to recover lost blueberry crops and rebuild devastated dairy farms, homeowners whose houses were washed away, and 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, “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 — 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, 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.