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Areas of Canada most likely to flood – CTV News

Published

2 years ago

September 3, 2022

As southern Pakistan grapples with deadly flooding along the Indus River, residents of another country with a lengthy history of floods may be wondering if it could happen here.

With three coasts, nearly 900,000 lakes and more than 8,500 rivers, significant flooding events are part of Canada’s past and its future.

They’re also Canada’s most expensive and most common natural hazards, according to Public Safety Canada, affecting hundreds of thousands of Canadians.

“There are urban areas across the country that all deal with flooding,” Carleton University professor Jennifer Drake told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview on Friday. “But the causes of flooding can vary with the climate and the region.”

Here are the types of regions in Canada most likely to experience flooding events.

RIVER DELTAS

While many people associate the word “delta” with the Mississippi River, John Richardson, who teaches in the University of British Columbia’s department of forest conservation sciences, says Canada has many deltas, and they’re typically prone to flooding.

According to Richardson, river deltas form where the flow of a river slows as it reaches the body of water it drains into, causing that flow to spread out over a larger area and deposit sediment that eventually becomes a landmass.

“Many of the places in Canada where we see big floods are largely in those delta-type areas,” Richardson told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview Friday. “The thing that’s important is to think about river deltas as not just going into the ocean. River deltas also into other rivers, into lakes and wetlands.”

Deltas are especially prone to flooding when water levels rise, either in the river or the body of water it’s flowing into. This flooding, he said, has caused problems for communities situated in Canadian deltas, like those along the Fraser delta in British Columbia.

Flooded farmland is seen along the Fraser River in an aerial view near Abbotsford, B.C., on Wednesday May 16, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

FLOODPLAINS

Flat, shallow areas of land adjacent to rivers, known as floodplains, are especially prone to flooding during storms, spring ice melts or any other event that causes water levels to overtop the riverbank.

“The name says it all,” Richardson said. “Floodplains were established over thousands of years from streams carrying sediment down from where it’s being eroded from.”

Richardson said they’ve historically been attractive places to settle, since the soil in floodplains is good for farming.

“So we have had a history as humans of building into those areas.”

Richardson said communities situated on floodplains are threatened by water level changes caused by storms and spring ice melt, not only due to the risk of a river overtopping its banks, but because these water level changes prevent storm-water drains from properly draining, leading to urban flooding.

Several communities in Toronto were devastated by historic flooding during Hurricane Hazel in October 1954. That event killed more than 80 people, left thousands homeless and destroyed bridges and roads in the west end of the city, near the Humber River floodplain.

NORTH-FLOWING RIVERS

According to Drake, spring brings additional risks for communities along rivers in the form of the freshets, or spring thaws, and accompanying ice jams. While freshets can raise water levels, ice jams create natural dams that impede the flow of water through the river.

“Ice jams are when you have that surface ice on a river that breaks up and gets stuck like a log jam, and causes the water behind it to back up,” said Drake, who teaches in Carleton University’s department of civil and environmental engineering. “These are hard to predict.”

Water dammed by ice jams can flow over the banks of a river, impacting nearby communities.

While ice jams can occur on any river that freezes during the winter, north-flowing rivers such as the Mackenzie River are especially prone to them. This is because upstream water to the south thaws faster than downstream water to the north, contributing to the build-up of ice jams and increasing the risk of local flooding.

Notable examples of major flooding in north-flowing rivers include the 1950 Red River flood in Winnipeg, and the Red River Valley; the 2020 Athabasca River flood in Fort McMurray, Alta.; and annual flooding along the Mackenzie, Hay and Peace rivers in Alberta and the Northwest Territories.

Along Canada’s coasts, storms bring the risk of atmospheric surges that can push seawater up onto the land.

“The water level rise that happens when you have a hurricane or a large storm creates flooding or exacerbates flooding for coastal cities,” Drake said.

In January 2000, a record storm surge event in New Brunswick caused more than $1.7 million in damage in communities from Shediac to Bathurst.

Richardson expects to see storm records broken with increasing regularity throughout the country as climate change intensifies.

“We all know with climate change we’re anticipating stronger storms,” Richardson said. “Even if you look at hurricane intensities, those have been increasing in average intensity for most of the last 40 years.”

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Whitehead becomes 1st CHL player to verbally commit to playing NCAA hockey

Published

26 mins ago

September 13, 2024

Anne Joseph

Braxton Whitehead said Friday he has verbally committed to Arizona State, making him the first member of a Canadian Hockey League team to attempt to play the sport at the Division I U.S. college level since a lawsuit was filed challenging the NCAA’s longstanding ban on players it deems to be professionals.

Whitehead posted on social media he plans to play for the Sun Devils beginning in the 2025-26 season.

An Arizona State spokesperson said the school could not comment on verbal commitments, citing NCAA rules. A message left with the CHL was not immediately returned.

A class-action lawsuit filed Aug. 13 in U.S. District Court in Buffalo, New York, could change the landscape for players from the CHL’s Western Hockey League, Ontario Hockey League and Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League. NCAA bylaws consider them professional leagues and bar players from there from the college ranks.

Online court records show the NCAA has not made any response to the lawsuit since it was filed.

“We’re pleased that Arizona State has made this decision, and we’re hopeful that our case will result in many other Division I programs following suit and the NCAA eliminating its ban on CHL players,” Stephen Lagos, one of the lawyers who launched the lawsuit, told The Associated Press in an email.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Riley Masterson, of Fort Erie, Ontario, who lost his college eligibility two years ago when, at 16, he appeared in two exhibition games for the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires. And it lists 10 Division 1 hockey programs, which were selected to show they follow the NCAA’s bylaws in barring current or former CHL players.

CHL players receive a stipend of no more than $600 per month for living expenses, which is not considered as income for tax purposes. College players receive scholarships and now can earn money through endorsements and other use of their name, image and likeness (NIL).

The implications of the lawsuit could be far-reaching. If successful, the case could increase competition for college-age talent between North America’s two top producers of NHL draft-eligible players.

“I think that everyone involved in our coaches association is aware of some of the transformational changes that are occurring in collegiate athletics,” Forrest Karr, executive director of American Hockey Coaches Association and Minnesota-Duluth athletic director said last month. “And we are trying to be proactive and trying to learn what we can about those changes.

Karr was not immediately available for comment on Friday.

Earlier this year, Karr established two committees — one each overseeing men’s and women’s hockey — to respond to various questions on eligibility submitted to the group by the NCAA. The men’s committee was scheduled to go over its responses two weeks ago.

Former Minnesota coach and Central Collegiate Hockey Association commissioner Don Lucia said at the time that the lawsuit provides the opportunity for stakeholders to look at the situation.

“I don’t know if it would be necessarily settled through the courts or changes at the NCAA level, but I think the time is certainly fast approaching where some decisions will be made in the near future of what the eligibility will look like for a player that plays in the CHL and NCAA,” Lucia said.

Whitehead, a 20-year-old forward from Alaska who has developed into a point-a-game player, said he plans to play again this season with the Regina Pats of the Western Hockey League.

“The WHL has given me an incredible opportunity to develop as a player, and I couldn’t be more excited,” Whitehead posted on Instagram.

His addition is the latest boon for Arizona State hockey, a program that has blossomed in the desert far from traditional places like Massachusetts, Minnesota and Michigan since entering Division I in 2015. It has already produced NHL talent, including Seattle goaltender Joey Daccord and Josh Doan, the son of longtime Coyotes captain Shane Doan, who now plays for Utah after that team moved from the Phoenix area to Salt Lake City.

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Calgary Flames sign forward Jakob Pelletier to one-year contract

Published

36 mins ago

September 13, 2024

Anne Joseph

CALGARY – The Calgary Flames signed winger Jakob Pelletier to a one-year, two-way contract on Friday.

The contract has an average annual value of US$800,000.

Pelletier, a 23-year-old from Quebec City, split last season with the Flames and American Hockey League’s Calgary Wranglers.

He produced one goal and two assists in 13 games with the Flames.

Calgary drafted the five-foot-nine, 170-pound forward in the first round, 26th overall, of the 2019 NHL draft.

Pelletier has four goals and six assists in 37 career NHL games.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.

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Kingston mayor’s call to close care hub after fatal assault ‘misguided’: legal clinic

Published

37 mins ago

September 13, 2024

Anne Joseph

A community legal clinic in Kingston, Ont., is denouncing the mayor’s calls to clear an encampment and close a supervised consumption site in the city following a series of alleged assaults that left two people dead and one seriously injured.

Kingston police said they were called to an encampment near a safe injection site on Thursday morning, where they allege a 47-year-old male suspect wielded an edged or blunt weapon and attacked three people. Police said he was arrested after officers negotiated with him for several hours.

The suspect is now facing two counts of second-degree murder and one count of attempted murder.

In a social media post, Kingston Mayor Bryan Paterson said he was “absolutely horrified” by the situation.

“We need to clear the encampment, close this safe injection site and the (Integrated Care Hub) until we can find a better way to support our most vulnerable residents,” he wrote.

The Kingston Community Legal Clinic called Paterson’s comments “premature and misguided” on Friday, arguing that such moves could lead to a rise in overdoses, fewer shelter beds and more homelessness.

In a phone interview, Paterson said the encampment was built around the Integrated Care Hub and safe injection site about three years ago. He said the encampment has created a “dangerous situation” in the area and has frequently been the site of fires, assaults and other public safety concerns.

“We have to find a way to be able to provide the services that people need, being empathetic and compassionate to those struggling with homelessness and mental health and addictions issues,” said Paterson, noting that the safe injection site and Integrated Care Hub are not operated by the city.

“But we cannot turn a blind eye to the very real public safety issues.”

When asked how encampment residents and people who use the services would be supported if the sites were closed, Paterson said the city would work with community partners to “find the best way forward” and introduce short-term and long-term changes.

Keeping the status quo “would be a terrible failure,” he argued.

John Done, executive director of the Kingston Community Legal Clinic, criticized the mayor’s comments and said many of the people residing in the encampment may be particularly vulnerable to overdoses and death. The safe injection site and Integrated Care Hub saves lives, he said.

Taking away those services, he said, would be “irresponsible.”

Done said the legal clinic represented several residents of the encampment when the City of Kingston made a court application last summer to clear the encampment. The court found such an injunction would be unconstitutional, he said.

Done added there’s “no reason” to attach blame while the investigation into Thursday’s attacks is ongoing. The two people who died have been identified as 38-year-old Taylor Wilkinson and 41-year-old John Hood.

“There isn’t going to be a quick, easy solution for the fact of homelessness, drug addictions in Kingston,” Done said. “So I would ask the mayor to do what he’s trained to do, which is to simply pause until we have more information.”

The concern surrounding the safe injection site in Kingston follows a recent shift in Ontario’s approach to the overdose crisis.

Last month, the province announced that it would close 10 supervised consumption sites because they’re too close to schools and daycares, and prohibit any new ones from opening as it moves to an abstinence-based treatment model.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.

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