Three Fraser Valley Conservative members of Parliament are speaking out against the Trudeau government’s decision to turn down millions of dollars in flood infrastructure funding for Abbotsford.
Abbotsford MP Ed Fast, Mission-Matsqui-Fraser Canyon MP Brad Vis and Langley-Aldergrove MP Tako van Popta issued a press release Monday (June 24), expressing “profound disappointment” in the decision.
Their comments follow a press conference held June 3 in which Abbotsford Mayor Ross Siemens, Merritt Mayor Michael Goetz and Princeton Mayor Spencer Coyne said they felt abandoned by the federal government.
The three said their cities had each presented applications of more than 500 pages to the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund (DMAF) for rebuilding dikes and other key infrastructure damaged in the November 2021 floods and for providing future protection.
Goetz said they each received a “one-line letter” in response from the federal government that said their application didn’t provide enough of the information required.
Fast, Vis and van Popta said Monday that the support would have enabled Abbotsford to undertake critical mitigation work that would prevent future disasters such as the one that occurred in 2021.
“That flood devastated local farm operations, disrupted rail and road transportation, cut off vital trade routes and impaired Canada’s largest port in Vancouver. The cost to Canada’s economy was in the many billions of dollars. The human cost is yet to be quantified,” the press release stated.
Vis said officials from Infrastructure Canada recently advised them that the provincial government has made Prince Rupert’s application “its top priority” for federal funding.
“It now appears that the provincial NDP and federal Liberals have abandoned our community despite assuring us that Abbotsford was a high priority for DMAF funding,” he said.
The MPs said the federal government routinely solicits advice from the provinces and territories to determine which DMAF funding applications are approved.
They said federal officials told them that Abbotsford’s application was deemed deficient for not meeting the government’s “merit-based criteria” and that the application exceeded the scope of the projects that DMAF would consider.
“The City of Abbotsford worked exclusively with the NDP and Liberal governments on its application,” Fast said.
The MPs said the feds have delivered only 40 per cent of the disaster recovery funding they had promised in their 2021 fall economic statement.
“Our priority now is to ensure that, when the next funding opportunity occurs, all three levels of government work together as one to ensure that the critical flood mitigation work is completed,” Van Popta said.
“Time is not on our side, and we hope that it doesn’t take another massive, costly and disruptive flood to spur governments to act. The good people of the Fraser Valley deserve better.”
RELATED: ‘Completely abandoned’: 3 B.C. mayors react after federal flood funds denied
