Sundre MLA Ty Lund says he plans to tell premier-elect Alison Redford that the province needs to set up a government-funded program specifically dedicated to prevent and mitigating river flooding damage like that suffered here in 2005.
Not to do so could end up costing taxpayers far more down the road than putting the program in place now, he said.
“The one issue that is most pressing to me right now is to get in place a program where issues with rivers can be addressed over time,” said Lund. “My big argument in this whole thing is we need to have a program in one of the ministries, and I don't care which ministry, where we can access funds when things like this happen and will continue to happen. It makes absolutely no sense that we don't have a program in place.
“Right now no department has any budget for that type of project. I had to beg and go cap in hand many times to get that $2.5 million for Sundre. Quite frankly, all along everybody admitted, well, if we let the flood go, let it flood, then what's going to happen is we are going to pay more than doing something to prevent it.
“Right now with the issue on the Red Deer River upstream of Sundre there's no program to address that either, in order to get money to do anything, like if we as a province were going to contribute (to flood prevention work), and I quite frankly think we should.”
Last summer the province announced that Sundre would be receiving $2.5 million to construct flood prevention barriers along the west bank of the Red Deer River.
Mountain View County has identified a significant flooding risk south of Sundre and is currently trying to obtain funding, including from the province, to undertake flood prevention work.
Meanwhile, Lund said he will probably decide before the end of the year whether he will seek another term. He has represented the riding since 1993.
“I said all along that there was only one contestant in the race who would prevent me from running again and that was (Ted) Morton and he didn't even win his own constituency,” he said.
“Had Gary (Mar) won I would definitely be in, but the fact is I haven't really made a decision yet. I have to see how this all shapes out. I want to give Alison (Redford) some chance. She has said there will not be one (election) in the fall so there is time for me to get a feel of where I might go.
“I have to make a decision sometime between now and the end of the year I guess.”
Although he doesn't expect to be offered a post in the Redford cabinet, Lund says he will insist on being heard on the issues.
“The one thing that I am not prepared to do is be cut out of the major decision process and from what I've seen and heard I don't think that going to happen,” he said. “I'm not here to just say yes; I'm here to represent the constituency.
“When I say major decision I'm talking about committee work and how things are going to flow. So much of what was done before was a decision was made before we even knew what was coming and then you don't have input into what the decision is going to be and yet you are expected to go to the constituency and defend what the government decided.
“When Ralph (Klein) was premier, if a minister brought something to a caucus (all sitting party MLAs) meeting he wouldn't allow it to go forward unless there was at least 80 per cent agreement. But that discipline disappeared.” Redford has sent a letter to all Tory MLAs saying, according to Lund, “that decisions would not be made without caucus input.”
“That's very encouraging to me. Now we have to see how it's all going to work out,” he said.
