Provincial Government Re-Established as Diking Authority

Whereas the Province has designated municipalities as diking authorities and established a wide range of authoritative powers over them including requirements to fully administer and resource ongoing dike maintenance, flood protection planning, monitoring, inspection, as well as to substantively fund disaster prevention and relief initiatives; And whereas the Province of BC completed a Preliminary Strategic Climate Risk Assessment for BC in 2019 that found that extreme weather events will continue to worsen across the province in coming years including heat waves and severe river flooding with extreme precipitation events continuing to increase toward 1 in 20 year events becoming 1 in 10 year events or lower; And whereas the administrative and financial resources required for local governments to undertake the responsibilities as diking authorities are an increasingly unsustainable burden on local communities with no dedicated funding sources from senior government: Therefore be it resolved that UBCM ask the Province to be re-established as the diking authority in local governments.