Hon. Rodger Cuzner: I rise today to speak to Bill C-317, An act to establish a national strategy respecting flood and drought forecasting.

This is a timely piece of legislation, put forth by Francis Scarpaleggia, MP for Lac-Saint-Louis, who has been putting issues of water to the forefront in the other place for the entirety of his 22-year political career, holding the trust and respect of all parliamentarians.

I would also like to draw your attention to Dr. John Pomeroy, the Canada Research Chair in Water Resources and Climate Change and Director of Global Water Futures Programme at the University of Saskatchewan. His expertise has been indispensable in the drafting of Bill C-317.

Senators, many of us will recall the horror of the 2013 Calgary flood, a devastating natural disaster which brought to our attention the powerful weather events which have become more and more regular across Canada. In a strange way, this terrible event was also a key contributor to the creation of this bill.

Dr. Pomeroy was in Alberta during this disaster and testified during committee stage in the other place that:

. . . it rained for three and a half days over the mountains west of Calgary, Alberta in late June 2013. Two hundred and fifty millimetres fell on a late-lying snowpack, and the flood started. . . . The generation of these floods was in the mountains, and they rushed down towards Canmore, High River and eventually Calgary. . . . Four people died in that flood. Over $5 billion in damages occurred in the region. It was the most expensive natural disaster in Canadian history at that time.

I remember at that time speaking to my friend and former colleague Ted Menzies, who was the MP for Macleod, as he spoke of the shock and desperation put upon the people in his community. There was no timely warning in order to evacuate those residents affected.

Interestingly, Dr. Pomeroy cited that the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts was running a test product at that time which predicted that horrific event ten days before the Calgary flood. It was not communicated to the officials in Alberta as it was a test, but it does show what systems are out there that can make a real difference in predicting these natural disasters.

Colleagues, more recently, the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry released a report in October of 2022, which investigated the flooding that occurred in British Columbia in 2021. It is a thorough report and contains several recommendations moving forward to mitigate the occurrence of these floods.

Recommendation 1 advocates for the Government of Canada to collaborate with the Government of British Columbia, other governments in the province and relevant stakeholders to develop a comprehensive plan for flood control in the Fraser Valley. This plan should include both a timeline for dike upgrades and the establishment of a committee to examine flood mitigation measures as well as emergency preparedness and response strategies.

This is what Bill C-317 is about — providing accurate flood and drought predictions that Canadians can rely on, but on a national level. There is a lot at stake.

As MP Scarpaleggia put it in the other place, “Canada is the only G7 country, and perhaps the only developed country, without a national flood forecasting system.”

In Canada today, we have thirteen wheels steering the flood and drought prediction business. Ten provinces and three territories have systems which are developed bottom-up. They work to meet local needs of forecasting, while at the federal level we have a more complicated system which works top-down. There is little interoperability and has led to, according to Dr. Pomeroy, a fragmented system which does not meet the needs of the country as a whole.

We also have a disparity amongst the quality of systems used from province to province and territory. Some provinces, like Manitoba — which has been dealing with flood conditions for some time — have advanced, capable systems, as does Quebec. But the Yukon, for example, does not yet have expertise in this area. Global Water Futures, with the help of Environment and Climate Change Canada, developed a system for these predictions and has been running this in the Yukon since 2018.

Remote communities require assistance as well, and one of the prime motives for this bill is to bring these communities to the table.

What Bill C-317 aspires to do is bring all stakeholders together: the federal government, provincial and territorial governments, Indigenous people and academia. We should also keep in mind that we share river basins with the United States, so this is an international issue as well. According to Dr. Pomeroy:

. . . A federal-provincial-territorial co-operative system could far better ensure that resources and technologies are available to support operational forecasting and prediction from these co-developed systems.

This bill would, through the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada, in collaboration with the Ministers of Agriculture and Agri-Food, Infrastructure and Communities, Natural Resources, and Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness develop a national strategy on flood and drought forecasting to help provide key stakeholders with the information they need to forecast floods and droughts.

This is envisioned as a collaborative and cooperative approach which formalizes the system in order to make sure that we are all working on the same page, pooling information and best practices, all with the goal of mitigating the effects of floods and drought.

This isn’t happening at the moment. In 2019, Global Water Futures, again with the help of Environment Canada, met with the 13 provincial and territorial forecasters and established an informal working group to share that kind of information. That this is still informal and just began in 2019 should be of concern.

Bill C-317 would provide for extensive consultations between the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and representatives of provincial and municipal governments, Indigenous governing bodies and other relevant stakeholders including universities, civil society organizations and industry, including the insurance industry.

The latter — the insurance industry — was included in the legislation through a friendly amendment proposed by Michael Kram, MP for Regina-Wascana.

I see the importance of all these players being at the table in developing a flood and drought strategy.

The inclusion of insurance companies was done for a specific purpose. Certainty is what guides the insurance companies in setting rates. When there is no certainty in predicting floods, it can result in an inability to get a house insured. MP Kram said at second reading:

. . . insurance companies have considerably more difficulty in predicting flooding than they do in predicting other types of disasters . . . As a result, they simply do not offer flood insurance to many Canadian homeowners. When those homes get damaged or destroyed by floods, government programs such as the disaster financial assistance arrangements program . . . dole out billions of dollars to uninsured property owners whenever there is a flood.

Recently, the Insurance Bureau of Canada announced that the summer of 2024 was the most destructive on record. According to the bureau, the estimated costs due to severe weather events stands at $7 billion in insured losses. They report that number is ten times higher than the average $700 million in claims for weather events which occurred between 2000 and 2010 previously. This is an immense rise in claims and clearly tells the story of weather-related disasters in Canada.

The Insurance Bureau of Canada calls this:

. . . a whole-of-society challenge and requires all leaders and stakeholders to come together to develop a national action plan to ensure Canada is better protected. We all have a role to play in helping communities prepare for and recover from severe weather events.

Colleagues, a report by the Global Commission on the Economics of Water stated that the combination of decades of destructive land use and mismanagement of water has collided with the climate crisis to put “. . . unprecedented stress . . . .” on the global water cycle.

The report distinguishes between blue water, which is rivers and lakes, and green water, which is the moisture stored in soil and plants. The report states that green water is just as important to the water cycle, as it returns to the atmosphere when plants release water vapour, which makes up half of the rainfall on land.

If this trend continues, we will see temperatures rise and in turn see the drying out of landscapes, a reduction in moisture and increasing fire risk.

Accordingly, the strategy under clause 3 would assess the needs and benefits of national coordination, new investments and the use of new technologies; assess the need for new modelling that would identify properties and infrastructure most at risk; assess opportunities to develop national forecasting in order to address the information needs of all stakeholders; and prepare a proposal for the establishment of a cooperative national hydrological and water resource system.

Senators, the legislation asks for a strategy to be developed within two years and tabled in Parliament.

Internationally, this type of system is already in place in European countries, and they recognize the importance of such collaborative work. As well, the United States has been operating under similar approach for years. We in Canada can do the same.

Speaking of collaboration, this bill passed unanimously in the other place. That it did so speaks loudly to the seriousness of the problems we are facing across Canada.

We live in very uncertain times with respect to our climate and the economic effects it will continue to have in Canada. But it’s not just the economic costs we are thinking about. It was great to see MPs from four different parties understand the gravity of the situation and work together to ensure the passage of this bill.

For those affected by natural disasters caused by flooding and drought, there is an incredible mental toll. Community evacuations take a negative toll on all those involved. The fear, uncertainty, displacement, reconstruction and all the issues which accompany such disasters linger. Losing a house, a business or both leaves a mark. If we can prevent at the very least the loss of lives with this approach, our efforts will be worthwhile.

When it comes to Indigenous peoples, we must understand that government monitoring of floods and droughts is sparse. We tend to think more about cities. With this approach, we can begin to predict flooding in First Nations communities. It’s also important to bring Indigenous knowledge and memory into the strategy. These communities have much to bring to the table. As my friend Mi’kmaw elder Albert Marshall would suggest, there is tremendous benefit in two-eyed seeing.

There have been questions regarding whether the country needs this coordinated response to the changing climate. To my knowledge, weather does not recognize provincial boundaries, and the ability to coordinate across the country when it comes to the prediction of these events naturally involves all players mentioned in the bill. The provinces and territories would benefit from this approach.

MP from South Okanagan—West Kootenay Richard Cannings commented in the other place:

Now, in Canada, operational flood forecasting is a provincial responsibility but the rising threats and rising costs call for better forecasting that is more coordinated across provincial boundaries. The data that goes into flood forecasting modelling and drought forecasting must come from multiple jurisdictions.

I would like to add that a recent Nanos poll — we have been listening to a lot of polls lately, though maybe not so much on the weather — found that 61% of respondents do not consider the country prepared for the next weather-driven crisis. Of the respondents, 75% also believe that these weather events will get worse moving forward. Many of us seem to be on the same page when it comes to whether these weather events require action.

In closing, I would like to thank those responsible for bringing this bill to the fore. We are facing an unpredictable future with respect to weather that will be costly in terms of people, property and prosperity. We can work together to prevent much of the harm caused by the changes in our climate, and it’s my hope the coming weather patterns which have become so devastating will, at the very least, become more predictable.

Preparation is key when a flood occurs. Bill C-317 may give people the time necessary to prepare their properties, businesses and families to mitigate the effects of these extreme weather conditions.

Thank you.

Some Hon. Senators: Hear, hear.