This actually makes sense, because the "free market" doesn't work properly when it comes to flood plains. In theory, people would never put their homes on a flood plain if they couldn't get flood insurance. But the market for dwellings is highly irrational.
Dunno about Winnipeg's historical geography, but take a look at old New Orleans maps: people didn't build in the floodplain, for obvious reasons. Once government stepped in with grand assurances of levees ("we'll stop the flooding") and welfare ("if that doesn't work, we'll take care of you"), buyers were blinded to the natural realities. For decades, I'd see annual magazine articles opining "ya know, New Orleans is gonna flood again" - then it did.
It's not that "the free market doesn't work properly when it comes to flood plains", it's that government interference with its promise of what amounts to (and the article advocates) "free insurance" doesn't work properly. People build there because they're lied to: "yeah, sure, if something bad happens we'll confiscate the money you need from others and give it to you". We're now in a time where a whole lot of promises by a whole lot of governments - promises of "free insurance" included - are coming to hit the reality that "socialism fails when you run out of other people's money."
People take risks of natural disasters (floods, tornados, ice, whatever) everywhere. Hurricanes in Florida, blizzards in Canada, tsunami in Indonesia, tornados in Kansas, flooding in Winnipeg... It's up to them to decide what risks they'll take, what potential losses they're willing to accept as tradeoff for what probable benefits, and how they're going to prepare for disaster. Free market takes the very real facts of availability & limitation and disperses it in a fair manner; government intervention all too often distorts these facts, overpromises, underdelivers, and on the whole operates by garnering the support of many by promising to take from few by force.
Dunno about Winnipeg's historical geography, but take a look at old New Orleans maps: people didn't build in the floodplain, for obvious reasons. Once government stepped in with grand assurances of levees ("we'll stop the flooding") and welfare ("if that doesn't work, we'll take care of you"), buyers were blinded to the natural realities. For decades, I'd see annual magazine articles opining "ya know, New Orleans is gonna flood again" - then it did.
It's not that "the free market doesn't work properly when it comes to flood plains", it's that government interference with its promise of what amounts to (and the article advocates) "free insurance" doesn't work properly. People build there because they're lied to: "yeah, sure, if something bad happens we'll confiscate the money you need from others and give it to you". We're now in a time where a whole lot of promises by a whole lot of governments - promises of "free insurance" included - are coming to hit the reality that "socialism fails when you run out of other people's money."
People take risks of natural disasters (floods, tornados, ice, whatever) everywhere. Hurricanes in Florida, blizzards in Canada, tsunami in Indonesia, tornados in Kansas, flooding in Winnipeg... It's up to them to decide what risks they'll take, what potential losses they're willing to accept as tradeoff for what probable benefits, and how they're going to prepare for disaster. Free market takes the very real facts of availability & limitation and disperses it in a fair manner; government intervention all too often distorts these facts, overpromises, underdelivers, and on the whole operates by garnering the support of many by promising to take from few by force.