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As rising flood levels devastate parts of Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick, an expert said that officials should do more to convince people to move out of flood-prone areas.
Flooding has become a perennial problem in Eastern Canada, with catastrophic floods in those three provinces alone causing millions of dollars in property damage – and driving up insurance premiums.
Kevin Quigley, director at the MacEachen Institute for Public Policy & Governance at Dalhousie University, said that its high-time that that provinces do more to move people out of flood zones.
“We need to take a medium-term view, work with the communities and get people out of flood-prone areas,” Quigley told Globalnews.ca.
One way forward is Quebec’s proposed accumulative compensation plan, which is capped at $100,000 for residents in that province.
“It means if people ask for some money in the next three, five, 10 years, there will be an accumulative amount of $100,000,” François Legault, premier of Quebec, told Globalnews.ca. “When the accumulative amount will be reached, then we’ll offer a maximum of $200,000 to move to another house.”
Quigley told Globalnews.ca that, while a buyout incentive is a good idea, it still needed a lot of thought and community consultation.
“You could buy a lot of properties that are going to sit empty and going to be vulnerabilities and environmental problems and health and safety problems in other ways for the government, they own a bunch of properties,” he said.
