Flooding task force meets behind closed doors

Ottawa-area MPPs held a closed-door meeting with municipal and industry leaders Friday to look at how to make Ontario more resilient to flooding.

Kanata-Carleton MPP Merrilee Fullerton hosted the session in downtown Ottawa, which included the mayors of Ottawa, Clarence-Rockland and Alfred and Plantagenet, as well as representatives from Ontario Power Generation (OPG), Emergency Management Ontario and the Ottawa River Watershed Council.

West Carleton-March Coun. El-Chantiry also attended the meeting after initially being left off the guest list. He said the lesson from today's meetingwas for allparties to work together and that future meetings on flood prevention matters should be public.

"I think our residents deserve transparency on the whole issue and have all agencies talk to them about what's happening," he said.

"Have a meeting [behind]closed doorsdoes not answer the question. They need to hear it directly."

Task force aims to mitigate impact of future floods

5 years ago

Duration 0:44

Kanata-Carleton MPP Merrilee Fullerton said the results of the task force meetings will eventually be summarized in a report by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry.

'So many questions'

El-Chantirysaid that people in his ward which includethe hard-hit communities of Fitzroy Harbour and Constance Bay need answers from both the provincial and federal government on a number of pressing issues.

"Are you going to buy their homes? Are you going to help them to raise their homes? Are you going to help the municipality to build the infrastructure to be able to stay where we are?" he asked afterwards.

"There are so many questions and it's not really on the city's hands. We need other levels of government, both levels of government, to help us out on that."

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson called the meeting"a very frank discussion."

"My hope is that they understand the severity of the problem of people's lives and their livelihoods," Watson said. "We also recognize it's all three orders of government that have to be involved in this particular challenge."

Watson said he asked the province if it will follow Quebec's proposal and offera buyout for residents dealing withfloods year after year.

Scope of task force still 'unclear,' some say

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Sally McIntyre, general manager of the Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority and Coun. Eli El-Chantiry say there are still unanswered questions when it comes to the mandate of the task force.

More facts needed

As for Fullerton, she called Friday's meetinga "good start," but said thepublic will need to wait until the province hasmore facts to better communicate what she calleda complicated issue.

"I think will be very important in understanding how we communicate the facts and the evidence," she said. "I think we need to have improved communication so that the general public can understand what's going on and the report from the task force will be helpful."

"Water doesn't follow any jurisdiction," Fullerton added.

The results of the task force meetings will eventually be summarized in a report by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry.

Unanswered questions

At Wednesday's citycouncil meeting, El-Chantiry formally asked that upper levels of government look into what caused the flooding both this year and in 2017.

• After heavy spring flooding, Ontario creating task force focused on flood resilience
• Mayors demand independent review of dam operations

If flooding becomes the new normal due to climate change, many residents may choose to move,El-Chantiry said. But if it's been exacerbated by the way dams and reservoirs along the Ottawa River are managed, something can be done about it, he said.

Review a possibility

The province heard similar demands Thursday at a meeting from mayors in Renfrew County, attendend by Finance Minister Vic Fedeli and Natural Resources Minister John Yakabuski.

On Ottawa MorningFriday, Yakabuskiacknowledged the call for a review of dam operation.

• No simple solution to Ottawa River flooding

"I don't have an issue with that at all," Yakabuskisaid. "We would have to work with our other counterparts. The Ottawa River isn't solely ours."

Neither Fedeli nor Yakabuski were present atthe Ottawa meeting. Fullerton was joined by Ottawa-area MPPsJeremy Roberts, Goldie Ghamari, Toby Barrettand Jim McDonell.