New partnerships, rising hope A year after a historic and devastating deluge, Peguis First Nation is optimistic a more collaborative approach from various levels of government will make future flood fights more proactive than reactive By: Julia-Simone Rutgers Posted: 11:38 AM CDT Thursday, May. 18, 2023

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/05/2023 (842 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A year after a historic flood ravaged Peguis First Nation, there’s hope on the horizon.

This spring’s thaw passed without incident — a much needed respite for the still-recovering community — and a new, multi-government collaboration is giving Peguis a voice in how floods are managed in the future.

“I’m a happy man,” William Sutherland, Peguis’s housing and emergency management director, said in a phone interview. “We are working on a permanent solution to bring everybody home, which is great news.”

In the aftermath of the 2022 flood — which caused an estimated $300 million in damages to homes and infrastructure and prompted the evacuation of more than 2,100 people — a new partnership between Peguis, nearby Fisher River Cree Nation, local municipalities, the provincial government and Indigenous Services Canada (which administers emergency-response services) has emerged, Sutherland says.

“Efforts are being made to put Peguis in a more proactive and flood-mitigated position moving forward, that way we hopefully never have to have a partial or full evacuation ever again,” he says.

The effects of that partnership are already being felt. Last year’s crisis was exacerbated by the fact Peguis was denied federal funding to start emergency preparations in the spring because provincial forecasts predicted a low risk of flooding on the Fisher River.

“If we don’t qualify for funding and weather systems do impact our area, the most advanced warning that we get is 24 to 48 hours,” Sutherland says. “There’s nothing that can be done in that short period of time.”

Meeting notes between Indigenous Services Canada and Peguis leadership, obtained through a freedom of information request, show band councillors were incensed they had been denied the chance to prepare for the impending threat.

“Why can’t we be at the table when you make decisions? We would have told you what would happen,” one councillor said during a May 4, 2022, meeting. “Someone needs to be held responsible.”

But this year, Sutherland says the partnership allowed Peguis an opportunity to show the province how the region’s unique geography puts the First Nation at an increased risk — even when predicted weather patterns and water levels indicate otherwise.

Manitoba’s transportation and infrastructure department is currently working on new flood-risk maps for the Fisher River through a cost-sharing agreement with the federal government, an unnamed provincial spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

“The flooding that occurred in 2022 has reinforced the need … to identify and move forward with flood-mitigation solutions,” the spokesperson said.

Sutherland presented evidence showing drainage systems on farmland south of the First Nation had been altered, prompting increased strain on the Fisher River watershed; he was also able to show how extreme rainfall caused a ridge north of the community to breach, leading to flooding from all sides.

The result was a more accurate flood forecast in 2023, which allowed the community to secure $2.5 million in preparatory funding.

After the magnitude of last year’s flood, Peguis’s leadership ramped up a decades-long pressure campaign to get long-term flood mitigation commitments from provincial and federal governments.

During meetings at the height of the flooding, then-chief Glenn Hudson expressed the stress, frustration and anguish experienced by his community, according to the meeting notes obtained.

The 2022 flood was one of five major floods in the last two decades to hit Peguis. The repeated disasters have contributed to a severe housing crisis on Manitoba’s largest First Nation as homes are destroyed without enough support to rebuild.

“We’re sick of it,” Hudson told federal officials while asking to discuss long-term mitigation options at a May 3, 2022, meeting.

A month later, as clean-up operations had begun in Peguis, Hudson stressed he “did not want any more studies” and would take guidance from the plans outlined after floods a decade earlier, which showed a need for new culverts and drainage, better roads, controlled water flow and upgrades to the local water-treatment plant.

Indigenous Services seemed to take heed: though they noted “this path for long-term mitigation will take years,” the department committed to working towards the community’s immediate and long-term needs, according to the documents obtained. Indigenous Services recommended both a working group between local, provincial and federal leaders, and a written agreement to guide the development of solutions.

Peguis’s cries for help were further bolstered when a November 2022 auditor general report found the federal agency had failed to provide adequate emergency management supports to First Nations across the country, citing a lack of regional emergency plans, a failure to identify high-risk communities, a sizable backlog of underfunded disaster mitigation infrastructure projects and inconsistent supports for evacuees, particularly those facing long-term evacuations.

Many of these gaps had been identified in a 2013 auditor general report of emergency management in First Nations but had not been addressed, the 2022 report said. With environmental disasters like floods becoming increasingly severe and frequent because of climate change, First Nations are increasingly at risk, making mitigation all the more important, the report said.

Of nearly 600 evacuations affecting 268 First Nations — and more than 130,000 people — between 2009 and 2022, the report found the flood evacuees from Peguis had been stranded the longest.

Some evacuees from floods in 2009, 2011 and 2014 have been away from home for more than a decade, relying on inconsistent Red Cross and income-assistance funding to pay the bills. Those still living in hotels after last year’s flood have been forced to shuffle from place to place on short notice depending on room availability. They’ve been separated from their families, children haven’t been able to attend school and the stress of displacement has caused anguish that deepens as the evacuations drag on.

“Due to chronic underfunding of infrastructure, including flood prevention measures by governments, flooding episodes never end for Peguis,” former chief Hudson wrote in a 2022 press release.

“Most of the houses are never re-built as a result of underfunding, and so many members can never come back to live in their community among their people. That is why I call these members ‘refugees,’ not evacuees.”

“Most of the houses are never re-built as a result of underfunding, and so many members can never come back to live in their community among their people. That is why I call these members ‘refugees,’ not evacuees.”–Former chief Glenn Hudson

The auditor general described the federal department as “more reactive than preventative,” noting Indigenous Services spent 3.5 times more money responding to emergencies than helping communities prepare for or prevent them between 2018 and 2022.

Two-thirds of First Nations-led infrastructure proposals that would reduce the impact of natural disasters had gone unreviewed or unfunded, adding to mounting backlogs, the report found.

That’s in part because Indigenous Services’ infrastructure budget (in place until March 2024) dedicates just $12 million a year for proposals, though the department can use funds from outside that budget when available. Over four fiscal years, the department spent nearly $74 million on these infrastructure projects — 40 per cent more than was budgeted.

Indigenous Services told the auditor general the current backlog would cost at least $291 million to complete, meaning it would take more than 24 years to fund them all.

“First Nations communities are likely to continue to experience emergencies that could be prevented or mitigated by building the infrastructure,” the auditor general wrote.

Sutherland thinks the report could have been a driving force behind the new multi-government collaboration, but regardless of the impetus, he’s happy to see the community’s calls being answered.

“I’m really happy this year with that partnership in place. … We qualified for the additional funding that put us in a more proactive position, and I’m even more happy now because we did not flood,” Sutherland says, emphasizing the last four words.

“I’m really happy this year with that partnership in place. … We qualified for the additional funding that put us in a more proactive position, and I’m even more happy now because we did not flood.”–William Sutherland

While he won’t offer too many details about the plans being discussed in those meetings, he’s confident the work they’re doing will bring evacuees home for good.

“It’s at an excellent stage,” he says. “There’s going to be a lot of happy people.”

So far, efforts have focused on the housing crisis. There are hundreds of homes to repair, restore or rebuild — but this time they’ll be built to withstand future floods. New housing developments are underway, which will be raised above the one-in-200-year flood levels the community saw last year.

In an emailed statement, Indigenous Services said long-term mitigation planning is “complex” and the work is still in preliminary stages, but noted the department is working with stakeholders to address housing needs and repatriation of evacuees. The department said it provided $18 million to the First Nation between May 2022 and March 2023 for both flood recovery and 2023 flood preparation.

Sutherland has a hopeful, if modest, vision for the future of his community.

“I’m not saying that Peguis is not going to flood going forward — we likely will,” he says. “But we’re going to get to that point where, yes, Peguis flooded, but I’m glad to report that there have been no reported damages and no need for any evacuations.”

julia-simone.rutgers@freepress.mb.ca

Julia-Simone Rutgers
Reporter

Julia-Simone Rutgers is the Manitoba environment reporter for the Free Press and The Narwhal. She joined the Free Press in 2020, after completing a journalism degree at the University of King’s College in Halifax, and took on the environment beat in 2022. Read more about Julia-Simone.

Julia-Simone’s role is part of a partnership with The Narwhal, funded by the Winnipeg Foundation. Every piece of reporting Julia-Simone produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.