Help for Ottawa floods coming ‘sooner rather than later’: Flack

The Ontario government says help for flood-stricken residents is coming, but there’s still no timeline for it. CTV’s Katelyn Wilson reports.

Ontario’s Municipal Affairs Minister says he fully expects flood-stricken residents of Ottawa to receive provincial aid, but he is not sharing a timeline for when that help will be available.

This comes more than a week after record-breaking rainfall flooded thousands of homes in Ottawa. The City of Ottawa said that it had received 5,423 reports of basement flooding as of Friday.

Speaking to reporters in Kingston on Friday, Minister Rob Flack said he expected that the Disaster Recovery Assistance for Ontarians program (DRAO) would be activated in Ottawa.

“I am confident that we will be activating DRAO in Ottawa, I’m just not prepared to say when, but it will be sooner rather than later,” he said.

“It’s being assessed as we speak. I’m working closely with—and our team is working closely with—the mayor and the Ottawa team. It’s being assessed as we speak. I encourage everyone who has insurance to deal with their insurance provider right away… I met with my officials yesterday on this very subject. It’s being assessed, we are on the ground now. Stay tuned, support is coming.”

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As of Friday afternoon, there were no current DRAO activations listed by the province.

Under DRAO, residents and small businesses can apply for financial assistance to recover after a natural disaster. The program is only accessible if activated by the government for a specific region when a “sudden, unexpected natural disaster causes costly and widespread damage.”

The Ministry of Municipal Affairs says affected residents are encouraged to document all damage and retain photos, receipts, and records of clean-up and repair costs. They should also contact their insurance company to determine coverage.

159 homes receiving additional support

The city says more than 1,300 tonnes of flood-related waste has been taken to the Trail Road landfill as of Friday afternoon. A second round of storm-related collection will begin on Monday, 12 days after the storm.

More than 1,400 wellness visits have been made to flood-affected homes, and 159 households will be receiving additional support.

“Staff are following up directly in these situations to ensure information and assistance is provided and expect to have completed these calls by the end of the weekend,” Ryan Perrault, general manager of Emergency and Protective Services, said in a memo on Friday.

Five community information hubs in flood-stricken neighbourhoods were opened on Thursday. More than 200 residents visited the sites.

An information session for affected residents is scheduled for 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday at the entrance to Ben Franklin Place in Nepean, 101 Centrepointe Dr.

West-end councillors frustrated with slow response

Bay, College, and Knoxdale-Merivale wards were hit the hardest by the flooding, caused by the 118 millimetres of rain on Canada Day. Councillors in these areas say they’re growing increasingly frustrated with a seemingly slow response.

“Eight days after the Canada Day floods, I’m still looking for actions and answers from both the City and the Province,” said College Ward Coun. Laine Johnson, in a newsletter she released on Thursday.

Johnson says she plans to raise these issues with city council and ask the city’s auditor to review the planning, resources and response time that went into the flood recovery.

“We haven’t had a response from the province,” Johnson told CTV News Ottawa. “Residents expected more help on the ground. The City of Ottawa was responsible for initiating some of that with the province of Ontario. There was an assessment process. All of that took too long. That’s bureaucracy. I wanted to see how we could cut right through it.”

Bay Ward Coun. Theresa Kavanagh, whose own home was affected by the flooding, told Newstalk 580 CFRA’s Ottawa Now with Kristy Cameron on Thursday that the provincial government needs to act.

“I’m furious that they’re not responding. Maybe it’s because we’re not Toronto, I don’t know what it is, but we need this help,” she said. “Maybe the premier needs to come and look at it himself and stand in front of a pile of garbage that used to be somebody’s beautiful basement. That’s what he needs to do.”

Kavanagh said there needs to be investments in the city’s stormwater systems.

“We talked about the investment that is needed in infrastructure, and now it’s Exhibit A. This is why we need investment,” she said. “Have we been putting things off too long? Should we have done this earlier? Those are the questions we need answered.”

Knoxdale-Merivale Ward Coun. Sean Devine said in a July 7 newsletter that his ward has suffered from several natural disasters in the past few years, including the tornadoes in 2018, the derecho in 2022, and flooding in 2023 before the rainfall this past Canada Day.

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“I don’t just hear frustration. I hear residents asking a fair question: why is this happening repeatedly, and what are we going to do about it?” he said.

“Answering that question must now be a focus. We owe residents more than cleanup assistance after each disaster. We owe them a serious effort to understand where flooding is recurring, how homes are flooding, whether storm sewer, sanitary sewer, or overland flow issues are involved, and what practical steps can be taken to reduce future risk. That is why I am pushing for a comprehensive review not only of the July 2026 event, but also of the August 2023 flooding events, improved flood mapping, and a closer examination of stormwater management and drainage challenges in our older neighbourhoods.”

Johnson told CTV News Ottawa she would like to see a memo from the head of the city’s infrastructure services department that details exactly what happened on July 1.

“The rain gauge out at the airport was not the level of rain that we experienced in wards seven, eight and nine. So, we’re going to see those numbers of the most impacted wards be dramatically higher than the 118 that you saw at the airport,” she said.

“And then she’s going to detail what the assessment part of infrastructure would be, which I know residents are very keen to see. The questions in that assessment will be what infrastructure did not perform in the way that it was supposed to?”

With files from CTV News Ottawa’s Katelyn Wilson