Ron Lemieux

Local Government Minister Ron Lemieux says the province is already planning for possible flooding in 2012.

There was a lot of discussion at the Association of Manitoba Municipalities convention in Brandon last week about water management and government's role. Lemieux says municipalities have an important role to play in water management. "We're also counting on them to be looking forward in helping the province as to what are they seeing locally, what's happening locally, all of those things have to be fed into the machinery to make sure that everyone is working on the same page. We are going to be prepared as best we can. No one controls Mother Nature, we don't know what's coming but you have to be prepared the best you can."

Lemieux says Manitoba Infrastructure and Transportation deals with the Water Services Board and deals with a lot of the drainage issues and so on. It will deal with a lot of the infrastructure challenges related to drainage such as bridges and culverts.

He notes the flooding problems this year set back infrastructure planning because so much money was diverted to the flood fight. He says provincial and municipal governments are reassessing their priorities moving into 2012 to determine where money is best spent.