“Responsibility is shared between a large number of actors,” says one flood-management expert, “but the responsibilities are ambiguous enough that it’s very difficult to hold any …
Is Quebec Premier François Legault’s offer to pay homeowners $200,000 to abandon their flood-prone houses an example of government largesse, or an unjust drop in the bucket for residents whose homes were once worth far more?
“Governments are increasingly getting tired of paying to repair the same houses over and over, so when it comes to fairness as a general principle, they have to also look at whether it’s fair for the public treasury — that is, taxpayers — to be repeatedly bailing out these people who have these repeated flood losses.”
The mayor of flood-stricken Gatineau, Maxime Pedneaud-Jobin, noted that people require not only the value of their home, but what it will cost them to live in a new location. “This is a subject that we must approach with gentleness. … We’re talking about whole neighbourhoods in some cases,” she said Tuesday. “For those who live in places that will be systematically flooded year after year, we do have to raise questions.”
Municipalities may have little knowledge of flood zones, however, due to a lack of flood mapping that indicates current and future risks, which is a provincial responsibility. That issue is common across Canada, where there has been long-standing confusion over who is responsible for what, and a lack of conversation between different levels of government, Henstra said.
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