My wife and I are just concluding the purchase of our first home.  Despite some sever frustration, and a fair share of anxiety, this is a really exciting time for both of us.  The world is not with out its sense of balance however.  Just as we are looking forward to moving into our first home, many others in the province are trying to keep their heads above water, literally.

This weekend past we received a call from friends of ours who live in a little spot at the mouth of the Saint John river called Dominion Park.  Their house had flooded, they told us.  Wanting to be good friends we drove down, but I don’t think either of us was prepared for what we saw.  Their backyard was under three feet of water when we arrived at eleven that morning.  Throughout the day the water level continued to rise.  The same three feet was sloshing about in their basement.  We spent hours wading in that ice cold water, trying to recover whatever we could.  As is often the case with such things there are layers to the despair.  The defeat of watching a brand new washing machine grow increasingly waterlogged is different in kind from the loss you experience when you fish inter-generational heirlooms, soggy and smeared, out of the oily water.

Our friends have lived in this house for thirteen years.  You can imagine how much can accumulate in that time.  Not all of it was lost, but enough damage was done for this to rank as one of the great tragedies of their lives.

Driving throught the Kingston Peninsula you get a sense of how many others are being effected by this disassterous event.  Before the water had crested we saw homes where the river was seeping in through the first floor windows.  I have read some Canadians remarks in online forums, saying that because these people chose to live on the flood plain they should deal with the consequences and not expect any help from the government.  I am sorry for the person whose heart is so empty that he can look on the suffering of his neighbors with such callous indifference.  Although the Canadian government doesn’t seem to share this ignorant view, the difference is one of degree not kind.  In order to receive government compensation a person will have to come up with a one thousand dollar deductible.  Maybe if Stephen Harper had actually been on the ground of the emergency, not flying above it, he might have seen that many of the people who have been worst hit by the flood, are those who can least afford it.