Abbotsford mayor Ross Siemens says the most recent $557 million in federal disaster recovery funding for B.C. is a “good start.”
Parts of the city were decimated by flood waters in November 2021, and the latest payment to the province will help get Abbotsford and other hard-hit communities back to their pre-flood state, he said.
Bill Blair, minister for emergency preparedness, met with Siemens and others in Abbotsford last Thursday for the announcement.
This was the second round of federal funding handed over to the province, bringing the total to more than $1 billion to help communities rebuild from that November disaster. While Abbotsford was hit with historic levels of flooding, others were hit with landslides and isolation with roads cut off and houses and land swallowed by raging rivers.
The amount of the recent funding that will be directed to Abbotsford projects will be decided by the province, Siemens explained.
“What I’ve learned throughout this whole process is that this is for the recovery to building back to what it was (pre-flooding) with slight improvements,” Siemens said. “We are still working on the longer-term issues.”
That includes long-term resiliency funding to “build back better” so that these kinds of disasters can be better mitigated in the future, he said.
“It couldn’t happen soon enough,” Siemens told The News following the meeting with Blair.
Improving the Barrowtown Pump Station is among the highest of priorities for the city locally, but they are also keen to ensure officials in Washington are informed — and supported by their own federal government.
He said there are a lot of “moving parts” to rebuilding, building resiliency and working across an international border. The Nooksack and Sumas rivers need to have the level of attention from both American and Canadian governments as the Skagit and Columbia watersheds do, he said.
The flood mitigation that takes place in Washington affects B.C., but they also have their own communities to consider, Siemens noted.
“We’re cognizant of that, and that’s why we’re a little anxious. We have no control over that,” he said, adding that staff is there for discussions to provide a voice for this region and share “intricate knowledge” of how the water system works.
“We need to be consistent, diligent and constantly advocating,” he said. “At the same time, we have all the day-t0-day stuff, road issues and maintenance issues that go on in the city.”
Siemens said the other message they need to impress on all levels of government is that Abbotsford is key to the province’s food supply, with major highways and railways travelling through the city close to waterways and farms that provide dairy, poultry, eggs and more to stores and manufacturers alike.
But he’s confident in the representatives at the table, including Sumas First Nation Chief Dalton Silver and Abbotsford-Mission MLA Pam Alexis, who is the NDP’s minister of agriculture and food.
“She has done a really good job articulating the food security issues,” Siemens said. “We’ve got sympathetic ears and strong voices at the federal and provincial cabinet tables.”
Both Silver and Alexis were at Thursday’s announcement. Everyone is rolling up their sleeves and ensuring they’re all moving in the same direction, Siemens added.
“This is bigger than politics.”
The Insurance Bureau of Canada estimated the cost of insured flood damage was at least $450 million, making it the most expensive disaster in the province’s history. Federal disaster payments don’t cover costs that qualify for private insurance.
– with files from Canadian Press
READ MORE: Federal disaster aid program for 2021 B.C. floods now tops $1 billion
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