Calgary's Flood Mitigation Program

The Calgary Leadership Forum is a non-profit think tank that examines public problems in order to seek the truth by providing factual evidence in the true spirit of transparency to help provide practical solutions.  The Calgary Leadership Forum is the brainchild of Brian Lee a professional event speaker and former Calgary alderman from the 1980's.  The Leadership Forum assembled a panel of experts on hydrological flood plain data on the two catch basin watersheds that created the massive floods in Canmore, Calgary and High River.  During the question and answer period, the panel of experts had to field the hard questions of what caused the floods, how could the floods have been prevented, how people are coping with the flood, future solutions proposed by the municipal and provincial government in the flood mitigation program. It is interesting to note that the politicians from the municipal and provincial government from the flooded areas came to find out answers to possible solutions from the general public and the experts. It is apparent that the government officials are more concerned with public relations rather than finding viable solutions because they have no expertise in flood management . Moreover, the government is not tapping into the valuable resources from the community and are not forthcoming with viable solutions. In this one afternoon at the Croatian Club more information and understanding of the flooding of Calgary and the surrounding region was divulged in one afternoon to the general public than the trite sound bytes delivered by the municipal and provincial government who have assumed the majority of the responsibility to repair the flood damage and help mitigate future floods.  The community at large has to keep the politicians accountable for providing viable solutions instead of allowing them to sweep everything under the carpet and bureaucratic delaying tactics.

Leadership Forum 1:  Brian Lee introduces the flood mitigation problem followed by a commentary by the MLA from Calgary Bowness.