Expert says provinces should do more to get people out of flood zones

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.

Read more: IBC urges flood-homeowners to check their insurance coverage

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.