Fight or flight: Climate forces B.C. community choice
Global News
The idea of relocating his community isn't one that Arnie Lampreau of the Shackan Indian Band in B.C.'s Nicola Valley thought he'd be considering when he was elected chief.
The idea of relocating his community isn’t one that Arnie Lampreau of the Shackan Indian Band in British Columbia’s Nicola Valley thought he’d be considering when he was elected chief early last year.
After wildfires torched the forests surrounding the band’s reserves and flooding swept away homes and the only highway access just months later, however, he said he now wants to see members living in a safer place.
Lampreau was among the evacuees of both extreme weather events and said he knows it won’t be easy.
“Even myself, I look at starting over, you know. I took a better part of my lifetime to build where I’m at, and now, I’m basically going to be uprooted and leaving my home,” he said in an interview.
The Shackan First Nation isn’t alone in being confronted with a fight-or-flight decision in the face of climate change and increasingly extreme weather. Communities across Canada are weighing whether to invest in costly infrastructure upgrades to protect against the threats or spend on property buyouts and land acquisition.
A 2020 report on so-called planned retreat commissioned by Natural Resources Canada found the strategy is typically a reaction to a natural disaster like flooding where the cost of rebuilding homes is more than double the cost of relocation, health and emergency services.
However, it’s not a standardized practice, with neighbouring communities opting for different approaches, the report found. In the Ottawa-Gatineau region, homeowners in Quebec received buyouts following two record flood years in 2017 and 2019, while those in Ottawa did not.
“Inequity based on socioeconomic status and systemic marginalization is a persisting problem,” the report adds, pointing to the United States, where it says affluent, mostly white communities were able to garner more support for upgraded protections.