B.C. minister is ‘cautiously optimistic’ Ottawa will help after Fraser Valley floods

Kelly Greene, attends a campaign stop in Richmond, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ethan Cairns

VICTORIA — British Columbia’s emergencies minister says she’s cautiously optimistic about securing federal funding to prevent future flooding in the Abbotsford region, as she prepares to head to Ottawa with the city’s mayor.

Kelly Greene’s mission to Ottawa on Tuesday with Abbotsford Mayor Ross Siemens and Sumas First Nation Chief Dalton Silver comes more than seven weeks after Siemens blasted federal “inaction” on cross-border flooding that has repeatedly inundated his city.

She says in an interview that it has “felt very challenging” to receive emphatic responses from federal authorities after flooding events, but without receiving corresponding financial commitments.

Greene, Siemens and Silver will meet with federal officials including Emergency Management Minister Eleanor Olszewski and Housing and Infrastructure Minister Gregor Robertson.

An atmospheric river weather system caused extensive flooding throughout the Fraser Valley in December, when waters from the Nooksack River in Washington state poured over the border, in a situation Siemens partly blamed on a lack of federal attention to the problem that had previously caused massive damage in 2021.

Greene, who will be in Ottawa for three days, says the federal government needs to be at the table when projects to protect communities from flooding are discussed.

She says the Fraser Valley’s Sumas Prairie is not only significant for food security, but also the national economy as a transportation corridor, particularly during trade uncertainty.

Greene says it would be “premature” to put a dollar figure on what she wants from Ottawa as experts continue to cost flood mitigation measures, but acknowledges they would be “significant.”

This report by Wolfgang Depner, The Canadian Press, was first published Feb. 2, 2026.