Everyone knows Manitoba suffers damaging annual floods, so why the government inaction?

2022's flood season affected nearly the whole province, yet the government hasn't committed to improving long-term flood protection. Should government be held accountable, or are damages irremediable?

Jaclyn Victor is a graduate student at McGill University’s Max Bell School of Public Policy. Her policy interests include Canadian defence, the net-zero energy transition, and of course, anything relating to her home province of Manitoba.

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Flooding in Peguis First Nation, 2022. Source: CTV News

“EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE, ALL AT ONCE” is how CBC news described Manitoba’s 2022 flood season. Just this spring, 33 states of emergency were issued and thousands of residents were forced to evacuate their communities. Although the total amount of damage has not yet been calculated, the final figure is likely to be quite steep. Manitoba’s Red River is prone to flooding every year as the snow melts, but climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme precipitation events, which could increase the severity of Manitoba’s floods. Unfortunately for Manitobans, however, flood mitigation efforts can’t be easily improved by a quick fix in government. Impact assessments, funding, and project timelines are all important steps in the process, yet they take ample time and are susceptible to a lack of political will. Manitoba’s annual floods are here to stay, and Manitobans will simply have to adapt.

Although this spring was unique in that the floods were caused not only by the snowmelt but also by abnormally high amounts of spring rain, Manitobans are not unfamiliar with floods. Spring floods on record date back to the early 1800s, but it was the flood of 1950 that really changed the province’s approach to flood response. The 1950 floods destroyed 10,000 homes, displaced 100,000 residents, and caused $125.5 million ($1 billion in today’s figures) worth of damage. To ensure that such a disaster wouldn’t occur again, the federal government commissioned a study that ultimately recommended (in 1953) that a floodway be constructed around Winnipeg. The Provincial Government at the time was reluctant to commit due to high capital costs, and it wasn’t until Premier Duff Roblin was elected in 1958 that the project was allocated funding and commenced. Construction then began in 1962 and was not completed until 1968, but the floodway has since protected Winnipeg from severe flooding time and time again. 

A similar lag in flood infrastructure development is currently ongoing. An unusual amount of snowmelt in 2011 strained Lake Manitoba’s natural drainage channel in the Fairford River, causing properties along Lake Manitoba to flood, and resulting in over $1 billion of property and agricultural losses. A consulting team undertook a comprehensive study from 2012 to 2016 that considered several options to reduce the future Lake Manitoba flood risk. It was decided that a 25 km drainage channel would be developed, connecting Lake Manitoba with Lake Saint Martin to provide an additional drainage path. Although the construction of an access road has since begun, excavation of the channel is still awaiting environmental approval from Ottawa.

We look at this past spring and see that Peguis First Nation flooded for the fifth time in the past 16 years, yet they still have no protective ring dike. Although several other protective options exist, some are technically not feasible, while others are too costly – not to mention the political issue regarding whether the federal or provincial government should address the need for long-term flood protection. Meanwhile, in Winkler, buckled culverts almost forced the community’s evacuation, but a last-minute intervention by local farmers in the area helped pump the water into a nearby field with their tractors, pumps, and irrigation equipment, effectively saving the town. The flooding also caught Winnipeg off guard, which was forced to release nearly 60 million liters of raw sewage into the Red River when the city’s wastewater treatment plants became overwhelmed by increased capacity caused by the rains.

This most recent flood will likely go down in Manitoba’s history as one of the worst, and yet, Manitobans seem to have accepted their reality and the fact that more proactive government action likely wouldn’t help them fare better. The government offered a disaster relief package this year to help individuals experiencing damage, but has made no announcements regarding the long-term improvement of the flood protection network. Manitobans on the other hand, have also been quiet on their (potential) desire for future improvements, seemingly accepting that the floods will continue to cause damage year after year.

The province’s flood protection infrastructure is clearly far from perfect, but from a risk mitigation standpoint, at least the large population centers are adequately protected. Expanding the flood protection network to cover the entire province is simply unrealistic. The entire process – conducting initial engineering studies and consulting reports, fund allocation, and then project implementation – can take decades, even for small-scale projects. On top of this, political will must be sustained throughout, not to mention the exorbitant capital costs that could perhaps be more efficiently allocated to other policy issues within the province. Committing to expanding flood protection seems nearly impossible, despite their known frequency and ferocity. So, although Manitobans are regularly being evacuated from their homes, politicians are looking down on their province-turned-lake from helicopters, and we know this all will only become more frequent as climate change continues to change weather systems, Manitobans must – and are beginning to – accept this reality. 

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The Bell is edited by Jaclyn Victor, Jason Kreutz, Shweta Menon and Phaedra de Saint-Rome of the Max Bell School of Public Policy at McGill University.