CALEB NICKERSON

PONTIAC Aug. 14, 2019

Pontiac MP Will Amos is pushing for a review of the management of the Ottawa River following this spring’s floods. He spoke with The Equity on Aug. 8 to give a rundown of the progress of the file thus far.

“It has been a bit of a journey,” he said, noting that . . .

the discussion started back in early May when several municipalities, including Mansfield et Pontefract as well as the MRC, called for an inquiry into dam management and the regulation of the river flow. The mayors of Ottawa and Gatineau also requested a review of river management.

“People were hurting,” Amos said, about his interactions with local officials at the time. “People had lost homes and people have lost major investments and communities were losing infrastructure like the Patro. I think the mayors were expressing the frustration felt by many constituents.”

Amos said he urged the mayors to consult with the experts involved in river management before passing any more resolutions.

“I said, ‘Listen, I hear you. Let’s keep the conversation going here … See what the expert hydrologists have to say,’” he said, noting that the council eventually met with representatives from both the [Ottawa] River Regulation Planning Board (ORRPB) and the Quebec government. “The view [they] expressed … [was that this] flooding has everything to do with too much water and not much to do with management, or nothing to do with management, it’s a weather thing. But the scepticism remained. I think that’s in part because people, you know, are hurting.”

“I think there was a generalized lack of understanding about the role that dam management and river flow management played,” he added.

He said after a closed-door meeting with the mayors in June, they were still adamant that a study should be undertaken. He pointed out that there is the difference between a study, and an inquiry, which was used interchangeably in some of the resolutions that were passed.

“Some municipalities passed it using the term inquiry, some used the word study, there is a big difference, actually, between the two,” he said. “Inquiry is a term of legal art and an inquiry involves a judge. It’s exceedingly expensive and is very time consuming.”

He said he worked behind the scenes with his provincial and federal counterparts to put together a trilateral committee with representatives from the federal ministry of environment, as well as the relevant provincial agencies and private stakeholders. On July 31, he published a video on social media calling for an independent review.

“I knew that once a federal politician, particularly one from the governing party, was to step out and got a bunch of media coverage for it, I knew that that would add a lot of pressure,” he said.

On Aug. 2, Federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna tweeted out a letter she had sent to Ontario’s Natural Resources Minister John Yakabuski, noting that the province recently appointed a special advisor on flooding, Doug McNeil. She urged further discussion with both provinces regarding the scope of a proposed review. She also thanked Amos for his advocacy.

He said getting the three parties to the table, and hammering out the details would take time, but said that it needs to be done right.

“It has to be a trilateral process. That’s partly what makes this complicated,” he said. “It’s not useful, or helpful for one level of government to go ahead and do a study or an inquiry … What we don’t want is anything slapdash. We want what I asked for, which is an independent, comprehensive, full study. A full review of what happened and let’s see what lessons can be drawn.”

He said that all aspects of management should be looked at, including the ORRPB’s communication with residents, as well as the operation of dams and reservoirs.

He was vexed as to why his Liberal colleagues in the area hadn’t joined him in advocating for a review, since the flooding affected many municipalities down river. He also took shots at Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke MP Cheryl Gallant for her response to the flooding.

“You don’t see this kind of stuff coming out of my Outaouais Liberal colleagues,” he said. “To be honest, I don’t know [why]. Maybe because the only Conservative that was speaking up about it, Cheryl Gallant, was framing it as a conspiracy theory and turning it into a partisan football … That’s not a constructive way forward.”

In social media posts, Gallant has repeatedly blamed the flooding on Plan 2014, which was put in place in January 2017 by the International Joint Commission (IJC) to manage the levels of Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. Later that year, waterfront residents along both bodies of water, as well as the Ottawa River, were hit with record flooding. The IJC has denied responsibility for the flooding, blaming record levels of rainfall.