Transport committee  That particular recommendation in “Due North” was recognizing that much of the infrastructure that exists in the north right now will not be viable in the future. Much of it is built on permafrost, which will thaw permanently. It will be gone. It will leave unsuitable, unstable soil beneath it.

Transport committee  Thank you for the question. In those kinds of examples, when the dikes for flood protection that have been so much the subject of conversation lately are allowed to degrade and are not maintained to the level of service and the level of protection that they were originally designed to provide, we see the consequences during a major flood event.

Transport committee  Mr. Chair, I am just confirming that the question is for me.

Transport committee  The state of Canadians' understanding of climate risk is very poor. There have been interesting studies done that have shown that a fraction—10% or perhaps even less—of Canadians who live in flood risk zones are aware that they are at risk. There is not only a gap in climate risk information in this country, but also, even where it exists, Canadians aren't accessing it to better understand that they are, in fact, at risk.

Transport committee  Thank you for the question. The state of flood mapping across Canada is not an ideal one. As I mentioned earlier, probably half of households that are at high risk of flooding in Canada are not on a flood map anywhere, so they have no way of knowing about their risk. Municipalities are often left to develop that information on their own.

Transport committee  Thank you for the question. Certainly the federal government has a role to play in ensuring the resilience of our telecommunications systems. We haven't researched the specific mechanisms that are available to do so, but certainly its role in regulating those systems and the providers of those systems is to ensure that they are constructing and maintaining infrastructure that is designed to face the future climate.

Transport committee  Thank you for the question. Building codes and infrastructure codes and standards that dictate the way in which infrastructure and buildings should be constructed are an essential part of building an adapted country with resilient infrastructure. The challenge is updating frequently, and what we've heard through our research is that the pace of those updates for research at the national level, the trickle-down and the actual implementation and enforcement of those provincial building codes and standards is a long process.

Transport committee  To the first point, there's certainly the need for both the carrot and the stick sides of the equation: both the regulation of the way things are built and the incentives for builders and homeowners to apply measures that make them more resilient and that encourage them through things like insurance savings.

Transport committee  There is no one-stop shop for that kind of information. There is information at different levels that can be used for that purpose. The national adaptation strategy, at the very highest level, identifies some top-level priorities for the country. Many provinces and territories have risk and vulnerability assessments that identify their top priorities, including their top infrastructure priorities.

Transport committee  Through you, Mr. Chair, certainly we've heard from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and many other individual municipalities across the country that part of what constrains their ability to build resilient infrastructure and make their existing infrastructure resilient is a lack of stable funding and a lack of mechanisms to generate that funding.

Transport committee  Thank you again for the question. Through you, Mr. Chair, I can't comment on the specific design and use of debentures, not having studied that specifically at the institute. Certainly we've heard over and over again that the existing funding mechanisms and capital-raising mechanisms available to municipalities are not adequate for their needs in terms of the scale of funding and the time frames over which they need to acquire that funding to adapt their infrastructure to the scale that's required.

Transport committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for the invitation to speak today. My name is Ryan Ness. I'm the director of adaptation at the Canadian Climate Institute, Canada's independent climate policy research organization. Our job is to generate research and advice for decision-makers to use in making informed policy decisions and to drive action that's proportional to Canada's climate change challenges.