New data from the Forum Poll finds that flooding is a growing concern among Canadians.
The poll, which comes months after major floods ravaged parts of Ontario, found that 55 per cent of Canadians are more concerned about floods affecting their home or business today than they were four years ago.
In Ontario in particular, the poll found that number grew to 62 per cent, a figure matched only by residents in Atlantic Canada.
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However, despite the growing concern among some Canadians, almost three-quarters of those surveyed expressed no overall concern about flooding affecting their home or business, with nearly half saying they had no flooding concerns at all.
In a release, Forum Research president Lorne Bozinoff noted that the least educated and least wealthy Canadians were among those most concerned about flooding in general, “possibly because they are least able to bear flooding’s unforeseen costs.”
Ontario has been hit hard by floods in back-to-back years, with the Ottawa area and cottage country in the Muskokas among the most recent victims of flooding in the province.
London was hit by flooding along the Thames River early last year as well.
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The poll also comes months after the Ontario government announced it was cutting flood-management funding to conservation authorities by half.
According to Forum Research, which conducted the poll, the findings came from an interactive voice telephone survey of 1,733 randomly selected Canadians throughout the country.
The survey was conducted between July 26 and July 28 and is considered accurate to within +/- three percentage points, 19 times out of 20, measured as the average deviation across all response categories.
Data from the poll was weighted by age, region and other variables in order to reflect the Canadian population recorded in the latest census.
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