Bill C-317

National Strategy on Flood and Drought Forecasting Act

An Act to establish a national strategy respecting flood and drought forecasting

This enactment provides for the development of a national strategy to provide key stakeholders with the information they need to forecast floods and droughts.

Environment and Sustainable Development

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 11th report of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development in relation to Bill C‑317, An Act to establish a national strategy respecting flood and drought forecasting.

The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House with amendments.

[The Acting Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Okay. The reference number, so everybody has it, is 13047345, in the top left-hand corner of page 3, for Bill C-317, in both English and French.

Ms. Taylor Roy, I'll go to you to move your subamendment and to speak to it. Then we'll have a discussion on the subamendment.

[The Acting Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you for the opportunity to come and join your committee today. I sat on the environment committee back in the 42nd Parliament. It's always a pleasure to come back and visit you.

Today, we are going to be studying Bill C-317.

We have witnesses today from the Department of the Environment who will be available to answer questions. At the very back of the room, with this new set-up, we have Wayne Jenkinson, executive director of national hydrological services; and Stephanie Lane, executive director of legislative governance. Welcome to both of you.

We will now go to the clause-by-clause review of the bill.

I have some notes I'll go through before we get into it. The instructions that I'll give you before we start clause-by-clause on Bill C-317 are as follows.

As the name indicates, this is an examination of all clauses in the order in which they appear in the bill. I will call each clause successively, and each clause is subject to debate and a vote. If there is an amendment to the clause in question, I'll recognize the member proposing it, who may explain it. The amendment will then be open to debate. When no further members wish to intervene, the amendment will be voted on. Amendments will be considered in the order in which they appear in the bill or in the package each member received from the clerk. Members should note that amendments must be submitted in writing to the clerk of the committee.

The chair will go slowly, to allow all members to follow the proceedings accordingly. Amendments have been given a number in the top right corner to indicate which party submitted them. There is no need for a seconder to move an amendment. Once it is moved, you will need unanimous consent to withdraw it.

During debate on an amendment, members are permitted to move subamendments. These subamendments must be submitted in writing. They do not require the approval of the mover of the amendment. Only one subamendment may be considered at a time, and that subamendment cannot be amended. When a subamendment is moved to an amendment, it is voted on first. Then another subamendment may be moved, or the committee may consider the main amendment and vote on it.

Once every clause has been voted on, the committee will vote on the title and the bill itself. An order to reprint the bill may be required if amendments are adopted, so that the House has a proper copy for use at report stage. Finally, the committee will have to order the chair to report the bill to the House. That report contains only the text of any adopted amendments as well as an indication of any deleted clauses.

Are there any questions? Are we ready to start? Okay.

Before we start, I will ask if we want to have recorded votes for each of the pieces. That's standard procedure, I believe. We'll do recorded votes as we move through the bill.

Pursuant to Standing Order 75(1), consideration of clause 1, which is the short title, and of the preamble is postponed. I will call clause 2.

(On clause 2)

On clause 2, there is amendment G-1, moved by Mr. van Koeverden.

Do you want to speak to it?

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Yes, Chair.

It's not a reflection on your job as chair, but since this is your bill, I would move that during consideration of Bill C-317, an act to establish a national strategy respecting flood and drought forecasting, John Aldag be designated as acting chair of the committee.

Mr. Aldag is here, a former member of the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

The vote is at 5:45. We'll stop whenever we have to stop, but I believe it's 5:45. The bells are at 5:15.

Now, we'll go to the clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-317.

I believe Mr. Longfield has a motion.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Yes, we used to talk a lot about adapting to climate change or reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Perhaps that was because we hadn't acted quickly or forcefully enough over the years, but my sense now is that we talk more about adaptation than mitigation, although both are extremely important.

Thank you very much for your presentation, Mr. Sanford.

Now I'll go to the representatives of Ottawa Riverkeeper. As you know, I'm very concerned about the Ottawa River, but for other reasons.

As you know, through its meteorological service, Environment and Climate Change Canada is already making very useful data available. It provides citizens, businesses, the government, provinces and territories with accurate meteorological information and official weather warnings. In your mind, however, it's important that we establish a national strategy, like the one proposed in Bill C-317.

Why not review the mandate of that agency, which is currently in a better position to provide forecasts?

[Laura Reinsborough, Riverkeeper and Chief Executive Officer, Ottawa Riverkeeper]

Thank you so much for having us here today.

Mr. Sandford painted a global picture, and I'll bring you very local now to the Ottawa River watershed. Here we are. Whenever your service brings you to the national capital region, you are directly depending on the Ottawa River and its tributaries for your survival. It's our drinking water today as well, so cheers!

I'll be presenting along with my colleague, Larissa Holman, director of science and policy. You recently met her, as she presented at the freshwater study as well.

We were just invited a few days ago to present, and the timing is impeccable. We have prepared a flow-changes report on the Ottawa River watershed using federal data that has existed for years but has never before been analyzed through a watershed lens. So, to truly look at the data for what is happening in the Ottawa River watershed.... The results are eye-opening.

This Ottawa River watershed is vast, with a surface area of more than twice that of the province of New Brunswick. It provides drinking water for you and two million people. The flow of the Ottawa River can be so great that it can exceed that of all of the Great Lakes combined. It has been given the moniker “the sixth great lake” as a result.

We have a mighty river flowing through our nation's capital.

I'll speak about our experiences with the floods of 2017 and 2019 that have informed our comments today. It is also important to note that this mighty river is also affected by drought, so we need to take into consideration that even our mightiest of rivers are impacted by both floods and droughts.

Just two weeks from now we'll be releasing our first watershed report card, and we've analyzed 14 different indicators. Changes in flow is one of them, as I mentioned. Despite the availability of flow data through the water survey of Canada, our watershed report card is the first report that has conducted analysis on the data trends for both flooding and periods of low flow at a watershed scale. The jurisdictions within this watershed are very complex. The river itself becomes a border between Ontario and Quebec.

When the Ottawa River experienced extensive flooding in both 2017 and 2019—many of you will remember that—it caused extensive damage to infrastructure, property and people's homes. Both the Ontario and Quebec governments attempted to address the flooding in different ways, thereby working separately to confront an issue that cannot be solved one side of the river at a time. We see a need in this context, like with many other watersheds, where political jurisdictions need to be coordinated in order to ensure that the response is effective. This applies to predictions and forecasting as well.

We looked specifically at Bill C-317 and have a few recommendations to put forward.

[Wanda McFadyen, Executive Director, Assiniboine River Basin Initiative]

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and committee members, and thank you. It is an honour to speak to you today about Bill C-317.

As we all know, water respects no boundaries, be it in time of floods or of drought, so it's critically important that different water authorities across the country come together to share standardized data and be able to share that in a timely manner with stakeholders who work on the landscape and rely on that data.

I want to speak to two flood events that happened within our basin in recent years: the flood of 2011, which was a once-in-300-years event, and the one of 2014, which was a once-in-500-years event. These two floods were catastrophic in nature. In one instance, one community saw 11,000 residents evacuated from their homes and 4,000 homes and businesses impacted.

The mental health impacts to communities in times of flood are astronomical and go on for years and years. The flood of 2014 saw communities as well as rural residents marooned without supplies for days on end. Floods also impact infrastructure, farmland, businesses, etc., so we need to look at and work collaboratively on those across the country. As we've heard from Dr. Pomeroy, insurance is also impacted, which is a huge piece of the puzzle for those on the landscape.

The flip side, of course, is drought. We are starting to experience that at unprecedented levels. The difference between a drought and a flood is that droughts can go on for many months or years, while floods tend to have a shorter impact but wreak havoc on infrastructure for years to come in its replacement. I think it's very important that we look at that.

Both of these impact mental health, the economic well-being of the communities, the environment, the landscape and all the creatures that inhabit those landscapes. When I say “communities”, I'm referring to all communities: first nations, rural residents, urban residents, etc. Also, they cross international boundaries, as we heard earlier. We have to be respectful of the fact that water does flow across rural boundaries.

On behalf of our organization, I would strongly encourage the committee to work towards the development of a true national strategy that would enable all jurisdictions to share data in a standardized and understandable format to prepare for and react to floods and droughts. In working across those jurisdictional boundaries, they must recognize that those boundaries are municipal and provincial, as well as international. Communication, co-operation and coordination are all common goals that will lead to the success of this program, if it's to roll out.

You must invest in working with us, the grassroots stakeholders. Groups like ours, the indigenous communities on the landscape and the agriculture and conservation groups all hold a wealth of knowledge and have developed a network and a trust on the landscape with those impacted. In many instances, they are the first responders on the landscape, working with local residents, be it in times of flood or in times of drought.

Also, work towards creating resiliency, whereby all stakeholders have the ability and tools before them to adapt to change, not only to achieve environmental sustainability but to remain viable on the economic side of things for themselves and for the well-being of their communities. As well, the goals must also realize that research and adaptation of best management practices, and the utilization of tools that may assist in the process that is developed, are key to its success.

Transparent processes are a must. You must include transparent communication and information exchange in order to lead to the success of the programs.

Also, we must never forget the golden rule of water: Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you.

I'm very pleased to present you with this information today, and I'm quite willing to answer any questions. We're very pleased to see this strategy move forward and would encourage those of you around the table not to forget about us, the grassroots individuals who can help this become a success across Canada.

Thank you.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Let's just say that, in the next few months, the bill is voted on and passed in the House of Commons, and then in the Senate. Based on what you know about this legislation and on your experience in Canada and the United States, approximately how long might it take for Canada really to turn together as a single wheel with the 13 provinces and territories and for us to be responsible and effective at the national level?

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Scarpaleggia, I'm glad to see you performing this parliamentary role.

Dr. Pomeroy, thank you so much for your testimony. It's very interesting.

Mr. Pomeroy, earlier you used an image that has stayed with me: You said that every province and territory had built its own wheel. In other words, Canada now has 13 wheels. The aim of this bill introduced by our colleague from Lac-Saint-Louis is precisely to unify. As far as you know, and based on what you know about Canada, do you think we're capable of doing that within a reasonable timeframe, or could it take years for those 13 wheels to turn in the same direction?

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Okay.

According to the website of Natural Resources Canada, they have something called the flood hazard identification and mapping program, which was launched late last year, I believe. I'd like to read a quick quote from the website. It says, “The Government of Canada is investing over $227 million in the ongoing Flood Hazard Identification and Mapping program...to meet this need by updating and expanding its existing flood mapping capabilities.... Natural Resources Canada leads [this program] in partnership with Environment and Climate Change Canada and Public Safety Canada.”

Can you give us an idea of how the initiative contained in Bill C-317 will align with these initiatives that are going on at Natural Resources Canada?

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

As we said at the outset, the Canadian Meteorological Centre operates on a top-down model. In other words, there is no collaboration. We think the new system should be more collaborative and structured. Bill C-317 is a foundational bill.

To be collaborative, you have to rely on the National Hydrological Service, within which the federal government and the provinces collaborate and share costs.

The aim is to change the way we think about this issue so we can have the best of both worlds. As I said at the outset, we use a top-down approach. We can't change the fact that weather forecasting is made possible for us by satellites. Whether we like it or not, that's the way it works. It's centralized and top-down. However, there also has to be horizontal collaboration among local, provincial and territorial bodies so we can get the best of both worlds. Most of the elements are probably already in place, but we're working too informally for the moment.

As I said, the project is foundational. All we're asking the federal government to do is submit a proposal. It could be amended, but we have to have a good proposal in order to move forward.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Monique Pauzé]

I now call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 102 of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. Pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, February 14, 2024, the committee is commencing its consideration of Bill C-317, An Act to establish a national strategy respecting flood and drought forecasting.

This is the first time I have chaired this committee. I would like to welcome Mr. Patzer, who is replacing Mr. Mazier for a few minutes as the latter is in the House and will be back soon. I will be happy to turn the chair over to him at that time.

I should remind you that today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the order adopted by the House on June 15, 2023. To ensure an orderly meeting, I would like to outline a few rules to follow. I believe that witnesses and members are now familiar with the Zoom application and know how to access the interpretation and that they must raise their hand to request the floor. All the sound tests have been completed, as agreed.

I therefore give the floor to an eminent member of this committee, Francis Scarpaleggia, member for Lac-Saint-Louis and, especially, the sponsor of Bill C-317, which we are considering today.

Mr. Scarpaleggia, the floor is yours for 10 minutes.

The House resumed from February 12 consideration of the motion that Bill C‑317, An Act to establish a national strategy respecting flood and drought forecasting, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

National Strategy on Flood and Drought Forecasting Act

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise today to speak in this session of Parliament. I want to begin by saying hello to the people of Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou and to my team, Line, Mélanie, Marie‑Josée, Jenny, Lamine, Eric and Loukas, who are holding down the fort in my riding.

Let us now talk about Bill C-317, an act to establish a national strategy respecting flood and drought forecasting, which seeks to provide key stakeholders with the information they need to forecast floods and droughts. This bill affects me directly, since much of my riding had to deal with forest fires in 2023.

Year after year, more and more regions of Quebec and Canada are facing flooding and forest-fire-causing droughts because of climate change. Climate change is escalating around the world and causing climate events that are increasingly frequent, more intense and more variable in nature.

Quebec has experienced a lot of flooding in recent decades. The socio-economic costs associated with those floods have only continued to grow. The same is true of forest fires.

The Société de protection des forêts contre le feu describes the 2023 wildfires as the most devastating ever. The drought in May 2023 was the spark that ignited it all. Some 4.5 million hectares of forest burned in Quebec, including 1.1 million hectares in populated areas.

In summer 2023, there were 30 times more wildfires than the annual average, including 48 that burned more than 1,000 hectares, or 30 times more than the annual average in Quebec, which is 1.6 fires per season. Some 2,360 forest firefighters from the rest of Canada and around the world came to help their colleagues in Quebec.

The community of Lebel-sur-Quévillon, in Abitibi-James Bay-Nunavik-Eeyou, was the hardest hit by the wildfires in summer 2023. It had the biggest fire, made up of 19 fires that converged and burned 480,000 hectares of forest. Five years of forest harvests went up in smoke. I was there on the first day of the forest fires in Chapais and when Lebel-sur-Quévillon was evacuated, to announce the evacuation.

For those who do not believe that these fires are a result of climate change, I can enlighten them. I can tell them about the damage they caused in my riding in terms of the economic and social losses, of our people's insecurity and their fear of losing their homes and personal property, of their fear of going through more fires, of the lack of compensation to the cities and towns that were devastated. People are still stressed, and they are still awaiting financial assistance.

I worked with the mayors to help meet the complex needs of cities and towns in this difficult situation. I reported on the situation every day between May and August of last year.

Floods and droughts are natural phenomena that are amplified by climate change. Adjusting to the impacts of climate change means that public authorities need to rely on science to guide government decision-making. This means making relevant information about meteorological events, including droughts and floods, available to the public and all responders.

The Bloc Québécois agrees with the principle of Bill C-317, but someone will have to show how a bill seeking to create a national strategy to prevent floods and droughts will improve current public action, since public authorities are already doing much of the work.

In fact, we would like to take this opportunity to remind our colleagues that Canada is not a national state made up of a single people. There is no one single Canadian nation. Canada is a multinational society, which includes the Canadian majority, the Quebec nation and indigenous nations. The use of terms such as “national policy” or “national strategy” is therefore a bit misleading.

Everyone knows that a country can hold up diversity as a cardinal value while showing very little consideration for the diversity of nations that make up its population. That being said, our main concern about Bill C-317 is its relevance. We are not certain whether the bill’s provisions will have a beneficial effect on public action and, especially, on the ability of public authorities to plan and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

The preamble of Bill C-317 explains that the reason for this new legislation is the fact that “current flood and drought forecasting in Canada is conducted by the provinces without coordination between them and with limited federal technical support”.

It is therefore important to consider public actions already taken by the provinces in order to forecast and prevent floods and droughts and to evaluate to what degree federal support is or is not needed.

Quebec’s plan to protect its territory from floods contains sustainable solutions to protect our living environments. As we can see on the government of Quebec’s website, the plan is based on four areas for action.

Given the seriousness of the situation, the Quebec government has taken action. The ministerial action group on flood-related land-use planning was given a mandate to develop a land-use government plan to ensure the safety of the public and the protection of property in flood zones in Quebec. The action group collaborated with municipalities and the scientific community to find sustainable and creative solutions for protecting our living environments from flooding. Two advisory committees were also set up; one was composed of representatives from the municipalities and associations involved and the other was made up of experts from the various fields associated with land use and flood zone management. After several months of research and consultation, both committees tabled their report. The numerous recommendations they made were taken into consideration by the ministerial action group.

As my colleague mentioned earlier, Quebeckers can also use the Vigilance app to better prepare for flooding by keeping up-to-date on rising water levels in Quebec. Government and municipal stakeholders can also use it to alert and mobilize responders in the event of an emergency.

Generally speaking, we can reasonably say that the Quebec government has the expertise needed to protect the land and the people against flooding. In addition, Quebec put a great deal of thought into the Quebec water strategy, which takes into account all past experience. Quebec's strategy works quite well without intervention by the federal government, whose involvement is not needed to protect the environment and manage natural resources.

So it must be made clear that Quebec already has comprehensive flood prevention and water strategies, and that the strategies do not require federal government intervention. Therefore, in subclause 3(3), which defines the content of the future federal strategy, paragraph (d) will have to be amended to remove an unnecessary reference to a Canadian water agency. The very existence of this agency is just as unnecessary as the reference to it in the bill. It is not needed because of the division of powers provided for in the Constitution of Canada.

In closing, the last thing I want is to relive what happened with the 2023 forest fires in Abitibi—Baie‑James—Nunavik—Eeyou.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to speak to Bill C-317, an act to establish a national strategy respecting flood and drought forecasting.

I want to thank the member for Lac-Saint-Louis for introducing this legislation and advancing the important discussions on water management in Canada. The member for Lac-Saint-Louis and I share a passion for water, and it has been a pleasure to work with him as the chair of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, as we are currently studying water. This is important because, over the last eight years, the government has neglected the subject of water in its environmental policy. As a lifelong farmer and a proud defender of the rural way of life, I can say that no environmental aspect is more important to me than water is. There is an old saying that whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over. That statement is a testament to the importance of these discussions.

I am a proud Manitoban, and I can confidently say that Manitoba has the most robust history of adaptation in Canada when it comes to excess water. This comes not out of choice, but out of necessity. Manitobans live on what was once Lake Agassiz. It is well known that the city of Winnipeg is located directly on a flood plain, where the Red River and Assiniboine River meet. No one expected the city of Winnipeg to relocate because of its location. Instead, adaptation and mitigation were prioritized. In the mid-1900s, the majority of Manitobans lived in the Red River Valley, with many residents residing directly on its flood plain. In 1950, the province was unprepared for a historic flood that displaced tens of thousands of Manitobans and damaged infrastructure throughout the province.

A great Conservative premier of Manitoba, Premier Duff Roblin, understood flood plains and the impacts flooding would continue to have if not addressed. Following the historic flood of 1950 and the subsequent royal commission, Premier Roblin was responsible for developing one of the most successful environmental mitigation projects in Canadian history: the Red River Floodway.

The Red River Floodway diverts water flowing from the Red River around the city of Winnipeg. Not only has it prevented more than $40 billion in flood damage to Winnipeg, but the project was also completed on time and under budget, a rare feat for governments today. The Red River Floodway was a monumental undertaking that led to the creation of the Portage Diversion and the Shellmouth Dam and reservoir.

This big-picture thinking enabled governments to successfully plan for consequences hundreds of kilometres away from Winnipeg. This project was responsible not only for flood mitigation but also for drought adaptation, because of its water storage component. These projects are a true testament to what effective and practical environmental policy should look like.

In a nation as large and diverse as Canada, mitigation and adaptation should be a focus of environmental policy. It is important to note that Bill C-317 would not directly build water mitigation and adaptation projects such as the ones I mentioned, because Bill C-317 is only a strategy. We need to seek tangible and practical solutions. I hope that, if passed, Bill C-317 would not result in more bureaucrats and consultants and, instead, would advance solutions to the water challenges Canada faces.

In 2011, Manitoba was once again caught off guard; it experienced another historic flood. Local governments were forced to flood parts of their own communities to prevent worse damages in different water basins. I remember the 20-foot walls of sandbags in the city of Brandon. The community was anxiously monitoring the forecasts as it prayed for the dikes to hold.

Unfortunately, many of the lessons from dramatic flooding events are not learned until after the damage is done. Too often, all levels of government fail to focus on proactive and preventative flood management. Failing to plan is planning to fail. As a result, the citizens bear the economic and social costs. That is why it is important to be proactive in flood forecasting; in this way, communities can prepare for the most likely scenarios and mitigate the potential damages.

There were many lessons learned from Manitoba's 2011 flood. One of the most significant lessons highlighted was the importance of collecting standardized data for flood forecasting. Following the flood, it became very evident that there was a lot of data available regarding water and flood plains. Municipal, provincial and federal governments; water basin organizations; and farmers and landowners had their own data. However, all this data was gathered by different people, in different ways and with different formats.

Water knows no boundaries, so it is critically important that different water authorities are able to share standardized data so they can communicate with each other. Any national strategy must enable all jurisdictions to share data in a standardized and understandable format to prepare for and react to flooding.

Any national strategy on water must also respect jurisdiction, which has been absent under the current government. The standardization of data is common sense and has the potential to save taxpayers’ money because it can reduce the administration needed to translate this information. When we have more accurate data, it allows us to model the impacts of government policies more effectively.

Aquanty specializes in the predictive analytics, simulation and forecasting of water resources. It is an amazing model than can forecast if it has enough accurate data points. It can analyze the impact of precipitation, including how much can be absorbed by the soil at various distances downstream. The model needs a lot of accurate data to make these projections accurately, and this requires standardization and data sharing from local governments. Data is so important because too often bureaucrats pretend to know the lay of the land better than those who work and live on the land.

I know the sponsor of this bill understands the importance of local engagement, but too often the intent of legislation like this is ignored by bureaucrats far removed from the people. No one is better equipped to provide accurate information on water than the individuals who live and work on the landscape.

Unfortunately, there are countless examples of government officials not listening to the people on the ground. I know many farmers who have dealt with government during times of flooding on their land, and it is all too common to hear about a bureaucrat advising a farmer where they expect water will move and the farmer advising the bureaucrat where the water will actually move. When the water begins to move, it is the farmer who has been farming the land his entire life who is right, not the bureaucrat from some downtown office building.

While Bill C-317 would mandate collaboration and consultation with various levels of government, I do fear much of the consultation would neglect the people who understand the landscape the best. Hopefully we can examine how to best include the knowledge of landowners in the proposed national strategy at the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development.

In conclusion, Bill C-317 has the potential to make a positive difference to the future of flood and drought management in Canada. Unfortunately, we will not be able to fully understand what will be in the strategy or whether the strategy will address the concerns I raised.

If Bill C-317 becomes law, I am hopeful any national strategy on this matter can be built from the ground up and not from a top-down approach in Ottawa. Water has not been given the attention it deserves for too long, so I am thankful Bill C-317 has enabled Parliament to discuss an issue that is so important to Canadians.

As I said in my opening remarks, whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over. I look forward to continuing to fight over water in a productive way so Canadians are better off.

[Peter Schiefke, Liberal, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as always, it is an honour to rise in the House to speak to a bill, this time, Bill C-317, which directly affects my community of Vaudreuil—Soulanges. As everyone is well aware, historic floods affected thousands of my constituents in 2017 and 2019, forcing people out of their homes. Dozens of homes were destroyed in Vaudreuil—Soulanges.

The situation was so sad and so serious that the Quebec government was forced to declare a state of emergency in my community. The Canadian Armed Forces were called in to help us evacuate people from their homes and to fill sandbags. Together with the mayors and elected officials in my region, I helped arrange for thousands of volunteers to come to the aid of disaster victims by filling sandbags. My colleagues from Pierrefonds—Dollard and Lac-Saint-Louis came to help us fill sandbags. The member for Lac-Saint-Louis was actually the one who introduced Bill C-317 in the House. The Prime Minister of Canada even brought his kids to help us fill hundreds of sandbags.

These events clearly demonstrated that climate change is real and that it will continue to have a major impact in our communities, in my community and communities across the country. That is why I fully support the bill introduced by my hon. colleague from Lac-Saint-Louis, which would create a national strategy respecting flood and drought forecasting.

In 2017 and 2019, my community experienced two historic floods. They called them “once in a century” floods. However, we had two of them in three years.

The impact on my community was significant and cannot be understated. Hundreds of homes were flooded, and hundreds of my constituents, including families with children, parents and grandparents, were forced from their homes. The Canadian Armed Forces had to be called in to help evacuate people from their homes, which were literally washed away in the river. They had to come and help fill thousands of sandbags to help protect the homes from the rising water.

These were people's lives, and all of us, as elected officials, seemed helpless. What could we do against the rising waters? We did our best. We woke up every morning and had conference calls.

The reeve of the RCM, Patrick Bousez, the mayors, councillors and myself all worked together to better address the needs of people in our communities, but it was difficult.

I remember being there with one of my constituents, Ms. Joy, who lived in Terrasse-Vaudreuil. We showed up to help place sandbags around some of the homes. Her home had already been taken care of. She and her family and friends had built a five-foot-high wall of sandbags. She had an island of dryness in a sea of rising water. As we were filling those sandbags and placing them around other homes, we heard a scream; when we turned around, we understood why. One of the retaining walls that she had built was giving way; in a 30-second period of time, we watched her house be completely destroyed by the water. We did our best; we ran over to try to put those sandbags back, but we could not do anything against the force of the rising and raging water.

Therefore, it is easy for me to support this piece of legislation, put forward by my friend and colleague for Lac-Saint-Louis, which looks to develop and put in place a national strategy to better predict and forecast droughts and floods. This is a no-brainer for my community, and when I look around this room, I hope that all colleagues will see it as a no-brainer. This is something that would truly and tangibly serve Canadians all across the country. It would help people in a community like mine, which has been impacted by record floods, or one in British Columbia that has seen wildfires develop in record numbers and destroy thousands of homes because of record drought. It would help people in Atlantic Canada, who are seeing record storms, and so forth, go through their communities, or people in the Northwest Territories, who are seeing record wildfires destroy communities in a way that has never been seen before.

This bill is in addition to the work that we are already doing to fight against climate change. We are investing to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. We are making historic investments in making the transition toward a more sustainable transportation system and a more sustainable economy, which will help reduce our emissions and achieve net-zero by 2050.

There is, however, an additional aspect to our work to fight against climate change. We have to make sure that our cities, municipalities and communities are better equipped to know what is coming and be better informed about drought and flooding forecasts.

I remember waking up every single morning and having a conference call with all the elected officials in my region. All the decisions we made were based on the information that we were getting from Environment Canada and the forecasts from the Government of Quebec. We needed more information to make better decisions. That came to light very poignantly when the Trans-Canada Highway started to flood right before the Île-aux-Tourtes bridge in my community. This bridge sees 90,000 cars and trucks a day pass over it. That was not included in the provisions that we saw and the predictions that had been given to us by Environment Canada, the Government of Quebec and all their resources. It did not happen, thankfully. We did not have to shut down the Trans-Canada Highway, but we were within six to 10 feet of doing so.

I wholeheartedly support this piece of legislation. I hope that all members of the House will do so. I think it will do great things to help better equip members of Parliament and our elected officials at the provincial and municipal levels to better respond to the needs of our communities and make sure that we can do better at keeping them safe. That is one of our primary responsibilities here in this House.

I look forward to voting in favour of Bill C-317 when the time comes.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to rise today to talk about Bill C-317, because floods have always been part of our lives, but they are happening more and more frequently as a result of climate change.

This is true in Quebec, it is true in the rest of Canada, and it is true pretty much everywhere else in the world. The floods keep coming back every spring. They can be traumatic for people whose communities are repeatedly flooded.

That is what happened to the municipality of Matapédia in my riding. An advisory committee made up of the mayor, representatives of Quebec's ministry of emergency preparedness and the Canadian Coast Guard, and residents who are very familiar with the Restigouche River and its mouth has been monitoring the water levels every year for years now. These people have significant expertise in helping prevent flooding. Unfortunately, it is not always possible to stop the waters from rising, so it is becoming an increasingly serious problem for many municipalities.

According to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, costs related to flooding have quadrupled in Canada in the past 40 years. That is serious. We need a climate change adaptation strategy.

Most of Quebec's population lives near the water system, and approximately 80% of shoreline municipalities are at risk of flooding. As I said earlier, this is true pretty much across the country, and it is true in my riding, which has the St. Lawrence and other rivers. Water levels have gotten very high. That contributes to the risk of flooding.

Climate upheaval is likely to make the flooding worse. We need to be prepared. This bill says that we should have a national flood and drought strategy. That is not a bad idea. There are always plenty of people stepping up and taking action, but these people do not necessarily communicate with each other.

Do we need better communication among stakeholders? I think we do. Is a strategy, which means more bureaucracy, the right solution? Perhaps not. We need to really assess the needs of the various stakeholders, including the Quebec government, which has revised its own very effective strategy in recent years.

Quebec knows a thing or two about this. It was hit by major flooding in 2017 and 2019. In 2017, flood waters affected 293 municipalities in 15 regions, forcing the evacuation of more than 4,000 people in Quebec. It was even worse in 2019, when more than 10,000 people in 240 municipalities had to evacuate their homes. There is also the issue of how to help these people and compensation for flood victims.

The Quebec government turned these traumatic events into an opportunity to improve its strategy, particularly with regard to flood zone mapping. It discovered that, in greater Montreal, 40% of the people surveyed said they did not know that their property was in a flood-prone area. We were talking about the regions and the fact that coastal and waterfront communities can be in a flood zone. This is less of an issue in larger cities, but it may be the case in a number of municipalities where there is a risk of flooding. Informing the public and local elected officials about the risks and how to prepare for them is a first step.

As I already said, we agree with the principle of this bill. If there are any issues, let us identify them and try to find solutions. The strategy that is already in place in Quebec, its flood protection plan, focuses on four action areas to protect our communities.

The first action area is mapping. The objective is to map flood-prone areas at the watershed level in a consistent manner to enable flood risk analysis in Quebec. I recently went through the mapping analysis that the Government of Quebec will table sometime this spring. It shows that a majority of Quebeckers may be in for some bad news regarding their ability to get flood insurance for their homes.

In the next few days, the mapping will show the degree to which several municipalities are at risk, as I was saying. Obviously, we know that the risk of flooding will increase as a result of climate change. Exhaustive analyses have been done to map flood zones, and the recent disasters were even taken into account. For example, there was the flooding in Baie‑Saint‑Paul in spring 2023. That just happened, and these disasters are already being used as examples to prepare for the future. This first section on mapping is rather interesting.

The second action area is called “Réagir et encadrer”, or reacting and regulating. It talks about ensuring standard and strict application of development standards in flood zones and establishing rules around flood protection work.

The third action area is called “Planifier et intervenir”, or planning and intervening. It focuses on planning, at the watershed level, flood-related land-use interventions and supporting the implementation of flooding resilience and adaptation measures.

The fourth and final action area is called “Connaître et communiquer”, or knowing and communicating. The objectives consist in improving flooding forecasting, supporting planning, acquiring knowledge on best practices, fostering the development and maintenance of flooding expertise, improving access to information for different audiences, and ensuring better distribution of information on flooding risks.

In that regard, we have implemented the Vigilance app, which helps Quebeckers be better prepared for flooding by keeping them informed of rising water levels in Quebec. That is really useful. As I was saying at the beginning of my speech, it is very important to keep citizens informed of the risk of flooding. That is one of the first steps, and it is a very good one.

As I mentioned, the fourth action area focuses on communication, and that is something that I think definitely needs to be improved. As I was saying, we are seeing this in Matapédia, in my riding. Every year, a committee meets to monitor the rising water levels and the ice melt.

What is happening with the Canadian Coast Guard's hovercraft is that they start their route elsewhere in Canada. They have a lot of rivers and waterways to deal with. Matapédia is one of their last stops. Often, it is too little, too late. I think that communication with the Coast Guard is extremely important. I think that it is fundamental that the Government of Quebec and the governments of the other provinces communicate directly with the federal government, specifically with the Coast Guard, and that local authorities are also able to communicate directly with the Coast Guard.

We also need better funding and support. In developing this national strategy, it would be important to ask experts the following question if they testify before the committee: What is needed, and what is the federal government not doing right now? I think better support for disaster victims is important. We need better funding too.

This new mapping of Quebec tells us that we will progressively know more about what is predictable and which regions are really at risk, as opposed to those at medium or low risk. We will no longer be able to say that floods were not foreseeable. Perhaps emergency funds or emergency funding plans by the federal government will not universally apply in those areas where floods were foreseeable. Perhaps recurring budgets should be set aside for areas that are at high risk. Maybe that question needs to be asked.

However, better funding of the Canadian Coast Guard can certainly be part of the solution. Only two hovercrafts can travel virtually across the country to the very end of the line in Matapédia, which is part of my riding. It is a shame, but in many cases it is too little, too late. Things went well last year. We were spared from the worst of it, as they say.

There is less snow than usual these days. I think everyone realizes that, in Quebec at least. Will this have a positive impact? Perhaps. Will there be less ice melt and therefore the water will not rise as much? Perhaps. Then again, will there be more precipitation? That is another possibility.

Having good mapping and good communication is key, I think. I thank the member who introduced this bill. I would like to discuss it further with him.

The House resumed from November 24, 2023, consideration of the motion that Bill C-317, An Act to establish a national strategy respecting flood and drought forecasting, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, today we are speaking to Bill C-317, a private member's bill from the member for Lac-Saint-Louis. This bill asks the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, in consultation with the provinces, indigenous governments and municipal governments, to develop a national strategy for flood and drought forecasting. The strategy must assess the need for using new technologies in forecasting, the need for modelling to identify risk areas, the establishment of a national co-operative forecasting system and the preparation of a proposal for the establishment of a national hydrological forecasting service.

It is really hard to disagree with the premise of this bill. Floods and droughts are becoming more frequent and intense, causing billions of dollars of damage to infrastructure while destroying homes, crops and livelihoods. Home insurance premiums are steadily rising and in many cases homeowners cannot get flood insurance at all. Over 10% of Canadians cannot get flood insurance for their homes. In my riding of South Okanagan—West Kootenay, floods have devastated communities and rural areas.

In 2018, the town of Grand Forks was inundated by the Kettle and Granby rivers. Five years later, the community is still struggling to deal with the fallout of that event. Families lost their homes, businesses were forced to close and whole neighbourhoods have disappeared.

In 2021, an atmospheric river event caused catastrophic damage to the communities of Princeton and Merritt, just west of my riding, and caused over $5 billion in reconstruction. Those communities are still trying to recover.

This year has been literally off the charts for extreme weather around the world. Air temperature records were set on every continent. Ocean temperatures were so high that scientists could scarcely believe the data they were seeing. Ice sheets and glaciers were disappearing before our eyes. Catastrophic wildfires raged across Canada, Europe and around the world. Precipitation patterns have been thrown out the window. Intense rainfall events brought flash floods to major cities around the world.

I just came back from Ghana and Cameroon in Africa. Everyone there was saying the dry season has failed to materialize. The rain just will not stop.

We are living the effects of climate change and we must adapt to the consequences of our addiction to fossil fuels, because even if we stopped all our carbon emissions tomorrow, the floods, droughts and fires we are experiencing now will keep happening for centuries to come. It will not get better and we can only hope we will act quickly enough to make sure it does not get significantly worse. It is obvious that we would benefit from better forecasting of these extreme weather events. That is, of course, what this bill seeks to do.

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.

In my riding, floods mainly result when deep snow packs are met with sudden heat waves or intense rain on snow events, or both. As the rivers rise, we anxiously watch the river gauge levels. While the rivers in my riding do not cross provincial boundaries, they do cross the U.S. border, sometimes multiple times. So when the Kettle River is rising, we watch the gauge at Westbridge, operated by the B.C. government, then the gauge in Ferry County in Washington, operated by the U.S. government, and then another gauge operated by the U.S. government at Laurier.

A similar thing happens in the Okanagan Valley. During spring freshet, the flow of the Okanagan River is usually highly regulated by a series of small dams at each of the lakes but at that time, the Similkameen River is 10 times larger than the Okanagan, flowing out of the North Cascades at Princeton, crossing the border, and joining the Okanagan River at Oroville, Washington. The massive spring flow of the Similkameen literally swamps the Okanagan River, and even though the Okanagan is regulated by a dam operated by the International Joint Commission in Oroville, that dam is overtopped by the Similkameen flow and water moves upstream into Osoyoos Lake. That is how Osoyoos Lake floods with water coming upstream from Washington state and blocking the outflow of the Okanagan River.

These are a couple of examples showing why flood forecasting and operational decisions resulting from that forecasting need to be coordinated across all levels government, even international levels. The Red River in Manitoba is another famous example of that.

I mentioned earlier that snowpack monitoring is a critical part of flood forecasting in Canada, particularly in British Columbia, where mountain snowpacks linger well into the warm spring and summer months. The snowpacks in the B.C. mountains are the deepest in the world. In British Columbia, most snowpack measurement stations are operated by the provincial government, but some are run by agencies managing large hydro dams such as BC Hydro, and companies like Rio Tinto and Metro Vancouver. Again, coordination is important.

Another reason that coordination is critical is that forecasting and quantifying future precipitation events is notoriously difficult and requires modelling with very large computers. Canada's federal system has resulted in flood forecasting systems being managed separately by every province and territory, as well as some municipalities and conservation authorities. Coordination is minimal, and data collection often does not mesh between jurisdictions. Early warning systems vary as well.

This means that the ability to forecast flooding varies considerably from province to province, from watershed to watershed. The strategy called for in this bill could be helpful, but it is also important to point out that we are moving in that direction already.

The flood hazard identification and mapping program run by Natural Resources Canada is providing valuable information for all levels of government outlining exactly what areas are threatened by rising waters.

Now droughts are a somewhat different problem, operating on a longer time scale than floods, but they are still devastating to Canadians, especially Canadian farmers in dry landscapes who rely on water for their crops. The Okanagan Valley is one of the best examples of that. As dry summers come earlier and last longer, the demands for irrigation water grow. Those demands begin to come up against increasing demands for domestic water needs.

The Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada research centre in Summerland has scientists dedicated to developing better projections for future drought conditions. Droughts are also impacting water flows in the Columbia River system. Those flows are controlled by the Columbia River Treaty, and under the present treaty, Canada is obliged to provide water to the United States for power production.

Recent summers have seen Canadian reservoirs drawn down so much that local residents are having difficulty accessing recreational opportunities while American boaters enjoy full pools above their dams. Water temperatures in the Columbia River are now often lethal to salmon migrating upriver to the Okanagan River in late summer, negating much of the positive impacts that salmon restoration programs have made. This calls for international co-operation, and in this case, a renegotiated Columbia River Treaty that recognizes the impacts of climate change on the availability and quality of our precious water resources.

While flood and drought forecasting is critical, we should not forget another aspect of extreme weather brought to us by a changing climate, and that is catastrophic wildfire. Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops is setting up an institute for wildfire science, adaptation and resiliency. There, Dr. Mike Flannigan is perfecting predictive modelling that could tell us where wildfires would occur in the coming weeks.

This would allow wildfire crews to deploy to regions in anticipation of significant fire behaviour. That way we can be on the ground fighting fires when they are small, before they turn into monsters that destroy millions of hectares of forests and are only extinguished by winter snows. We need a national wildfire forecasting service as well as a national wildfire fighting force that could respond promptly to the predictions produced by that forecasting.

As I said at the beginning, it is hard to disagree with the premise of this bill. I can only say that the need for better predictive powers to forecast floods, droughts and fires is so patently obvious that I would have thought that the government should not have to wait for a Liberal MP to bring forward a private member's bill to debate in this place to force the government to do that.

The bill gives the government two years to develop a strategy for the preparation of a proposal for the establishment of a national hydrological forecasting service. I know the federal system is messy at times, and some provinces might object to federal efforts to build a better forecasting service, but these efforts should have begun years ago.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I too want to thank my colleague from Lac-Saint-Louis for introducing this bill. I also thank him for his environmental convictions and his great patience as chair of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development.

There have been, as we know, a lot of floods in Quebec over the past decades, and the related socio-economic costs have constantly increased, including health costs related to the trauma and mental health issues that the impacted people can develop afterwards. Floods and droughts are natural phenomena that are amplified by climate change. Adapting to the impacts of climate change will require public authorities to rely on science to guide public decision-making. This will involve ensuring access by the public and all stakeholders to relevant data on weather events, including droughts and floods.

A lot of that work is already being done by public authorities. It remains to be seen how a bill to establish a national strategy respecting the prevention of floods and droughts will improve current processes. However, I will say that the Bloc Québécois will support the bill, because we are not opposed to virtue.

We now that launching national strategies—gosh, I get so sick of the word “strategy” sometimes—is quite popular within the Liberal and NDP ranks, even though it usually results in the creation of laws, policies or committees that have no real effect beyond adding more bureaucracy and making people feel like they accomplished something.

By the way, we should take the opportunity to remind this House that Canada is not a national state with a population that represents a single people. As I have said before, words matter. There is no single Canadian nation. Canada is a society consisting of multiple nations, including the Canadian majority, the Quebec nation and the indigenous nations. Always using terminology like “national strategy” and “national policy” is a bit disingenuous. That said, it is well established that a country can flaunt diversity as a cardinal virtue while disregarding the diversity of nations that is at its core. I have a particular country in mind. I do not know if we are all thinking about the same one.

That being said, our primary concern about Bill C‑317 is its purpose. Why introduce such a bill? With all due respect to its sponsor, we are wondering if the provisions in the bill are liable to improve public action in any way, especially the ability of governments to plan and operate climate change adaptation measures. Indeed, that is what this is about: The phenomena identified in Bill C‑317 are accelerating and increasing and the climate crisis is to blame.

Again, when we hear the word “strategy” we think of military strategies. However, the dictionary defines it as the art of developing coordinated plans of action; a set of coordinated actions. That is interesting because the Government of Canada is already monitoring droughts through the Canadian Drought Monitor, or the CDM, as I mentioned in my question to my colleague. This tool “uses a variety of federal, provincial, and regional data sources to establish a single drought rating based on a five category system. These ratings are shared through monthly maps that show the extent and intensity of drought across Canada.”

Given that the Government of Canada already has operational tools within the CDM, how will Bill C‑317 add to that? Its preamble justifies it by stating that “current flood and drought forecasting in Canada is conducted by the provinces without coordination between them and with limited federal technical support.” I would like to emphasize the words “limited federal support”.

In this context, it would be wise to carefully analyze public actions related to the prevention and predictability of relevant climate events already undertaken by the provinces. Once that has been done, and knowing that technical support is limited, it seems to me that it is time to take action.

Let us take a look at what exists in Quebec. Quebec's flood protection plan presents sustainable solutions to better protect our living environments.

Quebec's plan is based on four areas of intervention. The first involves coherent flood mapping at the watershed level in order to study flood risks in Quebec. The second is to respond and provide oversight by ensuring consistent and strict development rules for flood zones, and by establishing rules governing flood protection structures. The third is planning and responding, in other words, planning responses at the watershed level through flood-related land use planning and support for the introduction of flood resilience and adaptation measures. The fourth is to learn and communicate, in other words, to improve flood predictability, support planning, learn about best practices, promote the development and maintenance of flood-related expertise, improve access to information by various segments of the population, and disseminate information on flood-related risks more effectively.

It is a rather comprehensive plan, and we are proud of ourselves.

There is also an app called Vigilance. I think that is a good name for it. This app helps Quebeckers to better prepare for flooding by keeping them informed of changes in water levels in each community. The app is a good way for municipal and government stakeholders to maximize the impact of their activities in case of emergency.

In general, we can say that the Government of Quebec is the one that has the expertise needed to protect its land and people from flooding. What is more, Quebec has an excellent strategy, the Québec Water Strategy, which is the result of serious government reflection that takes into account all past experience.

The strategy will be implemented through three successive action plans. Taken together, the measures put forward in the first action plan for 2018-2023 represent investments of over $550 million.

Quebec's strategy is working very well without any intervention from the federal government, which is not required to protect the environment or manage Quebec's natural resources. That being said, it is true that Environment Canada, through its weather service, already makes weather information and official weather warnings available to citizens, organizations, businesses, and provincial and territorial governments. This is really the best way to determine whether or not federal support is required. If it is required, how should that be set up?

We believe our study of the bill should involve trying to assess the need for coordination and technical support from the federal government. Furthermore, in assessing what is currently being done, how can existing detection and notification processes be improved? Are the technologies really up to date?

These are things that could be observed without necessarily resorting to a legislative mechanism. We believe that this study must absolutely be conducted in advance.

Finally, I will conclude by saying that the Bloc Québécois will be voting in favour of the bill introduced by my colleague from Lac-Saint-Louis. If there is truly a need, we have no reason to oppose the federal government's initiative to provide better quality weather information that public authorities will find easier to use. If that information contributes to the process and decision-making by public authorities when the time comes to plan preventive action for extreme weather events, so much the better. That is why we are voting in favour of the bill.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-317, an act to establish a national strategy respecting flood and drought forecasting. I would like to thank my colleague, the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Louis, for introducing this bill. I enjoy working with him on the House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development.

This bill covers some very interesting topics, including advance flood and drought forecasting models, sophisticated integration of spatially detailed hydrological management models and water resource management models, supercomputers with inputs from multiple meteorological forecast models, and on-site observations of rainfall, soil moisture, snowpack, glaciers, lake levels, ice jams and stream flows. There are certainly a lot of state-of-the-art technologies and subjects to consider in Bill C-317.

Typically, when I debate a bill in Parliament, I often put the bill into one of two categories: good bills that I encourage all MPs to support and bad bills that I encourage all MPs to oppose. After reading Bill C-317, it seems that this bill falls somewhere between those two extremes. Therefore, it would be prudent to support this bill at second reading so it can be further studied at committee.

Floods have been around since the beginning of time, and property damage caused by flooding has been around for almost as long. Whenever a major flood occurs, once all the people have been safely evacuated and the flood waters recede, the discussion soon turns to the cost of the flood in terms of property damage. Inevitably, this question is asked: Who will pay for the damaged or destroyed property?

Unfortunately, far too often it is different levels of government that have to step in to provide financial assistance. The federal government's disaster financial assistance arrangements program has spent approximately $8 billion in compensation since the program was established in the 1970s. Furthermore, the frequency and the amounts of future payouts are expected to increase as more and more properties of ever-increasing value continue to be built on lakefronts and riverfronts.

While I have no doubt that the federal government's disaster financial assistance arrangements program was set up with good intentions, one has to remember that all of the costs of the program are inevitably passed on to taxpayers. I have often wondered why different levels of government have to incur these costs. Why is this not something that is best left to private sector insurance companies?

I was so curious that I sat down and had this very conversation with representatives form the Insurance Brokers Association of Saskatchewan. It turns out that insurance markets function very well when there is a high level of predictability in which the insurance companies and their policyholders can operate. If insurance companies and their actuaries can predict with a reasonable level of accuracy that in any given year so many houses will be destroyed by lightning strikes, so many more will be destroyed by fires and so many more will be destroyed by some other type of disaster, then insurance companies can develop their policies and set their premiums accordingly.

Unfortunately, it seems that insurance companies have considerably more difficulty in predicting flooding than they do in predicting other types of disasters, such as fires or lightning strikes. 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 get activated, and it is the taxpayers who are ultimately left paying the bill.

Clearly, there is room for improvement. There has to be a better way to structure the federal government's policy than to have the disaster financial assistance arrangements program, as well as similar provincial programs, simply dole out billions of dollars to uninsured property owners whenever there is a flood.

In fact, these sentiments were echoed in the final report of the expert advisory panel on the disaster financial assistance arrangements, which was presented to the Minister of Emergency Preparedness in November of last year. One line in particular from the report’s executive summary describes the path forward very succinctly: “The Panel recommends the Government of Canada develop tools, information and capabilities to support risk-informed decision making by all levels of government, Indigenous communities, the private and not-for-profit sectors, academia and the public at large.” I feel that the term “risk-informed decision making” is very appropriate. If there is a flood plain right beside a river that is likely to overflow, it makes sense that builders be informed of the risk before they build. It makes sense that municipal and provincial governments be informed of the risk before they grant building permits. It makes sense that potential homebuyers be informed of this risk, and the associated insurance premiums, before they buy.

Perhaps the way forward lies in Bill C-317. If the federal government could step in and play a useful role in providing standardized, accurate flood mapping and flood forecasting information in order to facilitate an orderly marketplace for flood insurance for property owners, this would be a beneficial role for the federal government to play. If the flood information were accurate, reliable and stored in a database that were easily accessible to the public and to insurance companies, then a significant element of uncertainty in the marketplace could be reduced. Many private sector insurance companies would then be more willing to offer insurance policies to Canadian homeowners. When a flood inevitably happens at some point in the future, property owners would no longer fill out government forms to receive compensation; they would simply fill out an insurance claim with the private sector insurance company that sold them their policy.

This approach would represent a major cost savings for the federal government and for taxpayers. If one considers the cost of establishing and maintaining a standard database for flood mapping and flood forecasting, I think it is very reasonable to believe that the cost would be tiny compared to the billions of dollars of payouts that the federal government has made and will continue to make through the present disaster financial assistance arrangements program. For the vast majority of Canadians, the most valuable asset they will ever own is their home. It makes sense that as many Canadian homeowners as possible should have an insurance policy on their home that includes losses from flooding. With a properly functioning insurance market, perhaps over time, the disaster financial assistance arrangements program could be wound down, and taxpayers would no longer be on the hook whenever there is a flood.

In conclusion, sometimes the invisible hand of the market needs the helping hand of government. The need for accurate flood mapping and flood forecasting in the marketplace for flood insurance may be one of those times. Again, I would like to thank my colleague, the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Louis, for introducing the bill, and I look forward to studying it in more detail at the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my turn to commend my colleague from Lac-Saint-Louis. He is always so committed to protecting water, freshwater in particular, and the environment as a whole. In his speech, he clearly demonstrated the links between the environment and health. He explained that they were intimately linked. He also talked about the economic costs of floods and droughts. We could also add in the economic costs of all health problems. It all adds up.

On the subject of Bill C‑317, we already have the Canadian Drought Monitor and Environment Canada's weather services, for example. Do we need another piece of legislation to improve coordination?

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

moved that Bill C-317, An Act to establish a national strategy respecting flood and drought forecasting, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I believe that a key role of a legislator, especially when society is faced with a growing multiplicity of challenges, many of which require recourse to science to solve, is to act as a conduit, in essence a conduit for bringing the science that resides in our universities and other research entities, including government departments, into the realm of actionable public policy. This is what Bill C-317 seeks to do.

Before I delve into the bill, I would like to acknowledge and thank Dr. John Pomeroy, director of the global water futures programme at the University of Saskatchewan, and Dr. Alain Pietroniro, Schulich chair in sustainable water systems in a changing climate at the University of Calgary, both of whom have patiently provided me with a basic understanding of flood and drought forecasting to allow me to argue today, hopefully convincingly, for the creation of a national flood and drought forecasting strategy.

Fresh water is one of those complex policy issues that call for urgent political and policy attention. First, let me be clear, Bill C-317 is not about encroaching on provincial jurisdiction. It is not a Trojan horse, no more than the Canada Water Agency, which will be a platform for co-operation in better managing our water resources, would be a Trojan horse.

It would be a political conceit, not to mention just plain foolish, to think the federal government could govern fresh water, a provincial resource, in a top-down centralized fashion. That said, we need all hands on deck if we are to properly manage and protect this vital resource, which Canada has been blessed to possess in such great abundance in its rivers and lakes, in its ice coverage and beneath our feet in groundwater.

I implore members not to oppose this bill for reasons of politics or ideology. Water, especially when we speak of flooding, is a far too important of a non-partisan policy issue. Bill C-317, if adopted, would help better protect communities across Canada, including in Quebec, from the devastating impacts and costs of flooding. My own riding of Lac-Saint-Louis in Quebec, as well as ridings adjacent to it and further upstream, have been impacted by costly flood events as recently as 2017 and 2019. I have seen first-hand the damage and heartbreak that flooding can cause.

My bill calls for the creation of a national flood and drought forecasting strategy. I want to emphasize the word “national” here, as opposed to “federal”, which is a crucial distinction.

Water is far too vast and complex an issue for the federal government to be able to take on alone and take sole responsibility for. This would be true even if, by some miracle, the Constitution gave the federal government complete jurisdiction over water, which is obviously not the case. Centralization is simply not the way to go here.

The federal government readily acknowledges this fact in its words and actions. The federal government's equivalency agreement with Quebec on the regulation of waste water effluent is a good example of this desire to collaborate, even when it comes to a powers under the Fisheries Act, which falls squarely under federal jurisdiction.

That being said, when we talk about water or other environmental issues, gaining knowledge, advancing research and sharing best practices to reach better solutions are international undertakings that require a kind of collaboration that transcends borders. Nothing in this bill challenges respect for jurisdictions, including provincial jurisdiction over water. If the European Union countries can collaborate on a common water policy, the European water policy, the regions of Canada should be able to do the same.

The condition of our water resources is increasingly linked to climate change. In fact, water is the canary in the coal mine, an early warning system. I would like to quote one of the most respected experts on water policy, Jim Bruce.

He said, “Like a fish that does not notice the shark until it feels its sharp bite, humans will first feel the effects of climate change through water.” Put another way, to quote water policy guru Bob Sandford from his book Flood Forecast: Climate Risk and Resiliency in Canada, water is a child of climate. He writes, “If we follow what is happening to our water, it will tell us what is happening to our climate.” In other words, we experience climate change through water.

At this time, I would like to say that, while Bill C-317 deals with both drought and flood forecasting, I will be concentrating on flooding in this debate.

According to the United Nations, flooding is the most common natural hazard globally. Due to damage associated with floods, it has been known as the deadliest natural disaster after earthquake and tsunami.

To quote Zahmatkesh et al. from an article entitled “An overview of river flood forecasting procedures in Canadian watersheds”, published in the Canadian Water Resources Journal, “In Canada, floods are known as the most common, widely distributed, and the most costly natural disasters which threaten lives, properties, the economy, infrastructure, and environment.”

Needless to say, flood disasters hurt the economy. According to the Library of Parliament, an Insurance Bureau of Canada paper states that large natural disasters have a negative impact on economic conditions. A typical disaster lowers economic growth by about one percentage point and GDP by about 2%.

The damage from flooding is not only physical, it is emotional and psychological as well. To quote the report of the 1998 symposium on the Saguenay flood:

Some authors have observed an increase in depressive and somatic symptoms [and] emotional distress and anxiety [pursuant to flood disasters]. Some flood victims...[have even] exhibited psychological disorders 14 years after the event, including phobias, panic disorders and agoraphobia.

I have seen the damage. I have toured flooded areas of my riding with Jim Beis, the mayor of the Montreal city borough Pierrefonds-Roxboro, who has been tackling local flood risk head-on for years, through robust annual springtime flood preparations. He has worked tirelessly to buttress the community's resilience to floods, often not waiting on the city administration downtown to act to protect his constituents, many of whom are also my constituents.

Allow me to give a brief overview of major flooding events in recent Canadian history. In 1996, according to the report from the 1998 symposium on the Saguenay flood:

More than 16,000 were evacuated and 7,000 families witnessed...damage to their homes or neighbourhoods [in the flood].

Twenty percent of the disaster victims suffered post-traumatic stress and the flood “generated psychological after-effects that were measurable three months later.”

Apparently, these floods drove home the reality of climate change for Quebec's Premier at the time, Lucien Bouchard, and its destructive potential.

In 2017, the Ottawa-Montreal region experienced extreme flooding and then again in 2019. According to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, the 2019 spring flood in Quebec cost $127 million in insured damages.

This brings me to 2013 in Alberta where, to again quote Robert Sandford in his book Flood Forecast: Climate Risk and Resiliency in Canada:

Three storm cells combined and then lingered for three days in the same region and unleashed 250 to 270 millimetres of rain in the upper regions, producing some nine million cubic metres of rainfall, suddenly turning mountain creeks into raging torrents. The spring snow melt was late that year and the snowpack was above normal for late June, something that was not recognized in the province's flood prediction system or model. The province's flood prediction system utterly failed and flood warnings were not issued in many places until after evacuation orders were issued. However, the inadequacy and failure of Alberta Environment's flood forecasting system should not be attributed to the skill or knowledge of individual forecasters but to systemic problems related to staffing cuts, reliance on outdated forecasting tools and inadequate field monitoring.

The flood caused $5 billion in damages.

In British Columbia, in 2021, parts of the southern region of the province recorded between an estimated 1-in-50 and 1-in-100-year rainfall events, triggered by an atmospheric river, delivering about one month's precipitation in a matter of hours. The total flood damages totalled $9 billion.

Needless to say, damages from flooding are expected to grow exponentially with climate change. According to a report by GHD consultants entitled “Aquanomics: the economics of water risk and future resiliency”, “droughts, floods and storms could wipe $5.6 trillion USD from the GDP of key economies, with some more affected than others.”

In Canada, “droughts, floods and storms could result in a total loss of $108 billion to Canadian GDP between 2022 and 2050, an average of 0.2% of GDP per annum.” Output losses in Canada in manufacturing and distribution alone between 2022 and 2050 could reach a total of $50 billion. One can only imagine the impact on inflation of increasing, widening flooding events.

Flood forecasting is a complex endeavour with two key components: meteorological forecasts and hydrological modelling to translate weather forecasts into stream flow and water level predictions. Accurate flood forecasts also require knowledge of watershed characteristics, which influence water flows. It is easy to see that accurate flood forecasting relies on large quantities of data from multiple sources and the ability to create models that are both broad and granular, into which to feed the data. As flood forecasts cover wider and wider areas and take account of more and more factors in an uncertain climate context, greater and greater processing power is required to crunch the data and produce a range of probabilistic scenarios, which means an increasing reliance on supercomputers.

According to scientists, “Canada is the only G7 country, and perhaps the only developed country, without a national flood forecasting system”. Flood forecasting in Canada is largely considered a provincial responsibility, carried out by many of the 13 provincial and territorial governments, various municipalities across the country and some 99 of the Ontario conservation authorities. However, there are disadvantages with this approach. The main one is the lack of integration with weather forecasts as well as inconsistent forecasting capacity across provinces. This fragmented approach can lead to the slow adoption of new technology and advanced methods, and to an absence of technical coordination with agencies like the Meteorological Service of Canada.

Most jurisdictions in Canada have no modern flood forecast modelling capability. Even the most sophisticated systems use dated software and are limited to major river forecasting. Fragmentation can also be problematic in dealing with transboundary basins when individual systems in each province and territory, and between provinces and territories and the U.S., are not necessarily compatible. Several provinces and territories are still struggling with their forecasting needs because of limited human resources or skills. However, there are advantages in the Canadian decentralized system. It allows provinces to be laboratories to test unique and innovative approaches that, once demonstrated to be successful, can be adopted by other provinces. The benefit of this fragmented approach in flood forecasting is that it allows for developing bespoke flood forecasting systems that are specifically tailored to work at regional scales and to tackle unique local hydrological challenges.

I have much more to say on the technical level about what the bill would accomplish, and I expect to be able to touch on those aspects in future speeches in the House and also in committee, if the bill gets there.

I would like to end by saying that the benefit of a national forecasting system is that its models are of higher quality, producing more accurate large-scale forecasts with longer timelines than is possible with local forecast models only. The ability to connect national models with local forecasting efforts is crucial for accurate flood forecasting and also for long-term capacity building. National modellers gain experience on a regular basis from floods in different parts of the country. A national modeller could very well predict a flood almost every year. Local modellers, on the other hand, might not predict a flood in their whole career. Working with national modellers facilitates knowledge transfer that strengthens the overall system.

The bill is trying to accomplish a formal structure of collaboration among the stakeholders in this area, with the scientists and the forecasters, which is something I believe they all want. At the moment, they do meet informally to share best practices, but there is a need for a more permanent structure that could bring them together to better predict floods for the benefit of all Canadians.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-317, An Act to establish a national strategy respecting flood and drought forecasting.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to table a bill to address a problem that has caused severe environmental damage across different parts of this country and created enormous financial loss for individuals, insurance companies and governments at all levels. I am talking about flooding and drought, as well as the need to take advantage of the latest technological advances and opportunities to ensure that Canada has at its disposal the most accurate flood and drought prediction systems in the world.

My bill is calling on the government to create a national flood and drought forecasting strategy in co-operation with the provinces, indigenous communities and other relevant stakeholders.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)