'This work needs to be done': Isthmus funding delays cause frustration in N.S. and N.B. border communities

An eleventh hour application for federal funding to address climate change threats against the Chignecto Isthmus has been greeted as a positive development along the New Brunswick/Nova Scotia border, but not much more.

“I guess it’s good because we have taken a step forward, but it’s still that unknown,” says Andrew Black, mayor of Sackville N.B.

Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston and New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs say the application for federal funding does not rule out potential legal action in the future.

Houston and Higgs want the federal government to pay for the entire project. The federal government says it will pay for half of the project’s costs through its Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund program.

Megan Mitton, the New Brunswick Green Party MLA for Memramcook-Tantramar, says time has run out for any further mitigation delays due to funding disagreements or legal threats.

“This work needs to be done, no matter what,” says Mitton. “In terms of what percentage should be paid by which government, I think the people of my area feel that it’s going to be our taxpayer dollars no matter what. We just need to figure out how to protect our communities and make sure we don’t end up underwater, in any given year.”

Mayor Black says limited signs of progress and a lack of communication has been frustrating for residents in the border towns of Sackville, N.B., and Amherst, N.S.

“Our two communities specifically have more skin in the game in terms of the Chignecto Isthmus flooding,” says Black. “For our municipalities, it is an absolute game changer.”

Portions of Sackville face a significant flood risk from severe storm surges.

“We just want to see the project get done.”

Reporters asked Premier Higgs at the Atlantic Growth Strategy Meeting in Moncton this week if suing the federal government while applying for funding would be detrimental to the project.

“No, I think the discussions we've had to date are both an interpretation of what we believe in one sense of the Constitution and what my federal counterpart believes [Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc] is what the Constitution says. So getting a legal interpretation and applying for that directly is a prudent thing to do,” said Higgs on Tuesday.

Dominic LeBlanc told reporters this week a lawsuit against the federal government over mitigation funding would be “frivolous” and a waste of taxpayers’ dollars.

During a stop in Halifax in late June, federal Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre said he needed to study the issue before commenting, stopping short of saying the federal government should foot the entire bill.

The Trans-Canada Highway, a CN Rail line, and a system of dikes built in the 1600’s are all located in the area, with an estimated $35 billion per year in goods and services passing through.

Project funding would go toward improvements to the dike system. Once believed to be between $300 and $400 million, mitigation work is now estimated to be as high as $700 million and would provide protection from major storms until 2100.

It could take a decade or longer to complete necessary work, considering three options: raising the height of 35 kilometres of dikes, building new dikes, or raising the existing dikes and installing steel sheet pile walls in select locations.

Roberta Clowater, executive director of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society in New Brunswick, says experts across multiple fields should be part of the decision of which option is used.

“It’s important for ecological reasons,” says Clowater. “It’s important for cultural and human reasons.”

“It will help us figure out how to deal with threats in other places, where it will also come up,” says Clowater. “How can we make sure that we are able to work best with nature, and put that into any of our solutions?”

Clowater says mitigation efforts at the Chignecto Isthmus must include consideration for the natural movement of wildlife, as well as consultations with First Nation communities.

With files from Derek Haggett of CTV Atlantic, and Keith Doucette of the Canadian Press 

For the latest New Brunswick news, visit our dedicated provincial page.