Bill C-241

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.

National Strategy for Flood and Drought Prediction Act

[Tatiana Auguste, Liberal, Terrebonne, QC]

moved that Bill C-241, An Act to establish a national strategy respecting flood and drought forecasting, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, before I go any further, I would like to acknowledge that we are gathered on the traditional unceded territory of the Anishinabe Algonquin nation.

I would like to draw the attention of the House to a critical issue: protecting our country from natural disasters, especially floods and droughts.

First of all, allow me to thank John Pomeroy, director of the Global Water Futures Program and a professor at the University of Saskatchewan, and the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Louis for their contributions to this bill.

Extreme weather events are becoming more and more frequent and intense. Every year, they threaten the safety of Canadians, jeopardize our crops, damage our infrastructure and put our water resources to the test. This is no longer hypothetical; it is an ongoing and urgent reality that requires our immediate action.

To combat these growing events, we need a coordinated national strategy. We need to get all the players involved if we are to properly manage and protect this vital resource that Canada is blessed to have so much of in its rivers, lakes, ice cover and soil.

This bill is vital. It is a major tool for protecting Canada from the devastating effects of natural disasters and for limiting the costs involved.

Let us talk about the costs of floods and droughts. They are expected to cause estimated GDP losses of more than $128 billion U.S. between now and about 2050.

In 2024, hurricane Debby caused an estimated $2.7 billion in insured losses in Quebec. Ontario saw over $990 million in losses caused by flooding in the greater Toronto area. The Jasper wildfires cost about $1.1 billion, and these are just some of the costs incurred in the last year.

According to available data, the 2013 and 2021 floods in Alberta and British Columbia resulted in estimated losses of between $5 billion and $9 billion. It is projected that droughts, floods and storms could cause an average total loss of 0.2% of our GDP.

Passing Bill C‑241 will enable us to limit the repercussions and protect our livelihoods while strengthening the country's economic and social resilience in the face of extreme weather events. Thanks to the implementation of early warning systems and rapid response plans, we have the ability to save lives.

This legislation is not just about managing natural disasters. It represents a long-term vision, a clear recognition that climate change is no longer a distant threat, but a very present reality that is already affecting our communities, ecosystems and economies.

Whether we are talking about droughts or floods, there is always one common element at the heart of both: water. Water is the source of all life. It is a fundamental issue for our society, our environment and our future. That is why water should be regarded as a non-partisan issue, an issue that transcends political differences, because water belongs to no party and no ideology. It belongs to all Canadians.

That said, water is also a vast and complex issue. It can be a source of life and prosperity, but when there is not enough or too much, it can be a source of destruction and suffering. That is precisely why this bill is so important. It aims to better understand, predict and manage this vital resource in order to protect both our citizens and our environment.

I would like to emphasize that this bill in no way calls into question provincial jurisdiction over water. On the contrary, it aims to establish strong collaboration between the federal, provincial and territorial governments, indigenous peoples and experts in order to protect our water resources effectively.

It is important to understand that water is central to the climate. We feel the effects of climate change through the medium of water, whether in the form of prolonged droughts or sudden flooding. It is essential to remember that floods are among the deadliest natural disasters our societies experience. According to some studies, more than nine million people have died in the last century as a result of floods. This means floods are a major hazard, second only to earthquakes and tsunamis.

Flooding is not an isolated or distant phenomenon. It is a daily reality for many Canadian communities.

In 2024, insured losses caused by climate events reached $8.5 billion Canadian, smashing previous records and highlighting the worsening climate risks that we face.

These events have devastating consequences: Lives are lost, infrastructure is destroyed, and entire communities are displaced. Flooding in particular causes considerable economic losses.

For example, the 2013 floods in Alberta caused damage estimated at $3.7 billion Canadian, making that year one of the costliest in terms of economic losses from natural disasters.

Bill C‑241 is a proactive response to these challenges. It aims to establish a national strategy respecting flood and drought prevention, enabling effective coordination between governments and the affected communities. This collaborative approach is essential to anticipate risks, minimize impacts, and protect Canadians and ecosystems.

The answer is simple: every year, in both urban and rural areas, thousands of people are affected by natural disasters. Lives are lost, families are displaced, and property is destroyed. Climate change is making these risks both more frequent and more severe.

This bill is not only a preventive measure, but it also protects human life, as well as our planet and future generations.

This bill could also reduce our reliance on foreign data. Here in Canada, we currently have all the expertise we need to prevent natural disasters. However, our compartmentalized approach prevents us from being leaders in this field. We rely on data collected by NASA, which has been sending spotty data to some organizations since October 2025. We do not know when these services will resume, but we cannot rely on others when researchers at universities such as UQAM and the University of Saskatchewan are internationally recognized leaders in the field. Even so, they cannot do all the work. It is up to us to step up and work together on a national strategy.

In conclusion, this bill will enable effective coordination between the provinces and territories, indigenous peoples and experts. This is about creating a table where everyone can sit down and work together for the good of our country.

This is not just a piece of legislation. These are concrete, urgent and necessary measures, something that can mean the difference between life and death, between destruction and resilience.

That is why I urge my colleagues to support this bill. Together, we can protect our constituents, our country and our planet. Together, we can build a safer, more responsible and more sustainable future.

Together, we can build a strong Canada.

[Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague, the member for Terrebonne, for her excellent speech and her excellent bill, which I am pleased to endorse.

This is a critical step in our efforts to protect Canadians from the risks posed by climate change. It is a major issue for my riding, Madawaska—Restigouche, which has been affected by rising water levels in recent years, and it is a major issue for many other regions across the country.

I would therefore like to ask my colleague if she could explain why it is so important, at this time, to have the tools to forecast floods.

[Tatiana Auguste, Liberal, Terrebonne, QC]

Mr. Speaker, climate change means that these phenomena are no longer rare occurrences. They are happening more and more often. There are droughts, and water levels are rising because glaciers are melting.

That is why it is extremely important that we create a national strategy that will enable experts and all levels of government to work together to protect our citizens across Canada.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my hon. colleague a question, and I would like to congratulate her on her election.

The current bill you are proposing does not amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which is the enabling legislation of the Department of the Environment. However, it is the Department of the Environment that is responsible for the current weather forecasting services.

Why does the bill not amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act? Is there an issue with the current Canadian Environmental Protection Act?

[The Speaker, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I will remind the hon. member that he must ask questions through the Chair.

The hon. member for Terrebonne.

[Tatiana Auguste, Liberal, Terrebonne, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would also like to congratulate my colleague on his election.

The national strategy really aims to bring everyone to the table where decisions are being made. That will give us the opportunity to share expertise from across Canada, whether it be from Saskatchewan or Quebec. We want to enable all provinces to benefit from this expertise because if there is a problem on one side of Canada, it affects the environment and water, and it will eventually reach the rest of the country. We have a duty to act to protect all citizens.

[Ellis Ross, Conservative, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if my colleague could share her thoughts on how a national strategy might be developed and what key components or structures she envisions for it.

[Tatiana Auguste, Liberal, Terrebonne, QC]

Mr. Speaker, what we are envisioning is a consultation process that includes experts, the various levels of government and indigenous peoples. This will allow us to benefit from the expertise of first nations and different governments, the technology available in some provinces, and the expertise currently found in Canadian universities.

[Abdelhaq Sari, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to thank my hon. colleague from Terrebonne for this bill, because I think it is remarkable.

In Montreal, particularly on the West Island or even in Rivière-des-Prairies, there has been flooding that affected people's lives and their peace of mind. The member has taken a unique approach to this problem, which affects everyone. She raised a very interesting aspect in her bill, namely research and novel technologies.

Can she elaborate on that? How can technology, including artificial intelligence and geomatics, and universities help us in connection with this bill?

[Tatiana Auguste, Liberal, Terrebonne, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we already have quantum computers and artificial intelligence working to help us in these areas. All we need now is to pool our resources so we can support Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

[Ellis Ross, Conservative, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to open by saying what an honour it is to be back where I started, on the environment file. I was the environment critic for the Liberal Party back in British Columbia as an MLA. Back in 2003, my main goal was to remediate the environmental damage done to my territory by industrial development. That led me down different pathways. It led me to aboriginal rights and title, for example. It led me to economics, permitting and environmental assessments.

Some may remember that in my territory, we had an aluminum smelter plant, a pulp and paper mill and a methanol plant. Back in the fifties, sixties and seventies, environmental standards were not a priority, not just in Kitimat but all across Canada, and maybe even North America for that matter. In understanding what environmental standards meant and what environmental assessments were, I found there was a logical way to address environmental impacts, both past and proposed. Quite honestly, I found myself very ignorant of how that tied into our society, Canadian society, and aboriginals living in our region.

This is where I first came across the term “balance”, and the standard of living versus environmental issues. It has been a very tough battle over the years to try to maintain that balance, especially when we consider that first nations, for the last 100 or 150 years, have been excluded not only from the economy but, to a large extent, from the society of Canada. It has been a very long journey to try to rectify those two provisions of the Indian Act. Today is a 180° turnaround in the environmental considerations we are talking about versus what we were doing 20 or 40 years ago.

I heard my colleague from the government side talk about what Bill C-241 is not. It would not be an encroachment on provincial jurisdiction, for example, and it would not negatively affect aboriginal rights and title. Consultation would be carried out. First nations and Canadians have heard this before. It would not be right to not address this directly.

Like a lot of MPs in the chamber, I have gotten a lot of emails from and had a lot of Zoom calls and meetings with first nations that are specifically worried about Bill C-5, for example, and how it is going to be rushed through for major projects and ignore the case law that was established in the courts of B.C. and Canada, specifically the Haida court case of 2004. I just got off a call with the Ontario chiefs, who talked a lot about the chemical valley and Sarnia. They are clear that they do not want to oppose development, but they do not want the past to be repeated and they get ignored.

They feel that talks with the commercial sector were going fine until Bill C-5 was enacted, and now they are feeling ignored. They feel they are being ignored because there seems to be a way to get to the finish line without talking to these chiefs about their treaty rights and title or their aboriginal rights and titles, which are two distinctly different topics.

In terms of environmental issues, the point I would like to make is that this is not new for first nations. For many first nations, we have to address environmental issues first. I know we are talking about forecasting for floods and disasters, mainly for better insurance purposes. I have talked to different people about what this could mean. Everybody agrees that it is a good idea to do this, but it is a duplication.

Is the private sector already doing this, especially in terms of insurance for flood protection or farming? Can we do better? Yes, we can do better, and I sincerely hope we are going to do better, but it cannot be a top-down approach. It has to be inclusive. There are many people and organizations that are affected by these disasters, as my colleague pointed out. We are talking about indigenous people. We are talking about people who live close to rivers. We are talking about farmers.

Nobody is immune from environmental disasters, so I think what Canadians want is to ask whether this is going to be an open and transparent process, in terms of getting Canadians' interests into the bill and making sure it not only does what it says it is going to do, but that there is no government overreach, such as what we have seen in other measures carried out by the government. Is it going to be rolled out in a way that does not provide more cost to the Canadian taxpayer?

Most Canadian taxpayers are already limited out. They cannot afford any more taxes. We talk about the affordability issue in this chamber every day. We are talking about how mothers and dads cannot afford groceries. Even if someone works in a grocery store, they cannot afford groceries. As Conservatives, it is our strong belief that this can be done within existing entities using existing resources and that the government could do it more efficiently without adding more cost to the taxpayer and without increasing the affordability crisis we are facing right now.

More taxation is not the answer. I have listened to the answers and the questions coming out of this chamber regarding Bill C-241, and it has always been pointed out that we already have some of the strongest environmental standards in Canada, if not in North America, both provincially and federally. It seems to make sense that with this high level of expertise Canadians have, we should be able, with existing resources, to do a better job of predicting floods and droughts and to prepare not only our entities to actually combat this and deal with it, but also regular Canadians.

I agree that the impacts are stressful for Canadians, both mentally and with the cost attached to them. Anything we can do to actually limit that suffering is a good thing, as long as there is no overreach and as long as there is no extra taxation.

I have also heard the idea that somehow this would not encroach on provincial jurisdiction. I go back again to Bill C-5, which talked about how we would build major projects in a fast-tracked fashion, and they would be fast-tracked within two years. It was in the constitutional authority Canada has to actually get this done in the national interest, and everybody, to a certain degree, agreed. However, the very next day the government came around and said it would not do something without national consensus, without defining what “consensus” meant. They did not talk about whether they meant provincial or municipal. They did not talk about regional districts. They did not talk about any of that.

We always get mixed messaging with all the measures that come out of the government, and all the Conservatives want to make sure of is that we do this in a very common-sense fashion with fiscal responsibility and practical solutions, because Conservatives' goal is simple: We want to protect Canadians, strengthen our economy and preserve the natural beauty of this country for generations to come.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, right now, the St. Lawrence River is at its lowest level ever. The drought currently affecting Quebec is impacting ecosystems, the local economy, maritime trade, and agriculture. Towns are bringing in drinking water from different locations. There are drought issues. We saw the forest fires in Canada; this year was the second-most devastating year for forest fires after 2023. We had catastrophic flooding after the tail end of hurricane Debby passed through. This all comes at a cost to families, to groceries and to insurance.

Unfortunately, the only conclusion we can come to is that the Liberal government is not being serious about the climate crisis that is making these phenomena more intense, more frequent and more severe and causing more suffering and higher costs.

When it comes to climate action, the Liberals have taken a number of steps backward since they came to power after the last election. I could list at least a dozen examples, starting with the elimination of consumer carbon pricing and the EV incentives, which they were supposed to reinstate but did not. People are no longer buying electric vehicles because they are waiting for those incentives to come back. There was the suspension of the strategy for the sale of zero-emission vehicles.

There is also the passage of Bill C‑5, which literally allows environmental legislation to be disregarded and completely blown off, in addition to providing for the approval of LNG Canada phase 2. This is going to double LNG exports.

The same goes for public transit. There is currently no agreement with Quebec for the Canada public transit fund. The government has spent $5.7 billion, but there is not even an agreement with Quebec.

We now see that the Liberals are even refusing to commit to meeting the country's GHG reduction targets. This is a major step backward, and it is worrisome. I could go on. If the Liberal government really wants to prevent floods, droughts and runaway climate change, it should cut GHG emissions. That is the priority.

Unfortunately, the government can announce a whole range of adaptation measures, but if it keeps moving backward the way it has been doing, it will never be able to adapt as much as it needs to. The government has gone backward for long enough. Now is the time for it to shift out of neutral and get in gear. We are talking about a climate crisis. The government talks about flooding, but then it buries its head in the sand about the need to reduce GHG emissions and refuses to do more than just talk about adaptation.

At present, if we want to protect the economy, we know very well that this requires drastic GHG emission reduction measures, and that is not what is being presented to us today. When I look at the purpose of this bill, it is to improve drought and flood forecasting.

Obviously, the Bloc Québécois agrees that we need to do more to adapt to climate change. We have been saying for several years now that information must be more readily available and that the communities affected by the droughts and flooding we were talking about need more predictability. However, is a bill that establishes yet another strategy with no budgetary impact really necessary? That is what we are currently having trouble determining with this bill, so we have doubts about its real scope.

Is this a legislative firework? Is it just meant to draw people's attention away from bad news on the climate front? We hope that is not the case.

Let me elaborate a little on my concerns. The bill proposes to create “a cooperative, national hydrological and water resources forecasting service and system”. Why is this bill necessary if it does not amend the existing framework legislation, which is the Canadian Environmental Protection Act? That is the enabling legislation of Environment Canada, which takes care of weather forecasting.

Is there currently a problem with the law regarding hydrological and weather forecasting that prevents the government from properly fulfilling its responsibilities or from improving the quality of its activities? That is our question. Where is the problem right now? Why could these proposed services not be provided directly by Environment Canada's existing weather services? Why do we need to create a new government body and a new general bureaucracy? That is a big question mark for us.

Environment Canada's Meteorological Service of Canada can get information from Quebec's environment ministry, which already oversees Quebec's regime governing bodies of water. Quebec's environment ministry already gathers data. It processes, analyzes and disseminates that data. It measures water levels and flows. Some 230 hydrometric stations are scattered across Quebec. This data enables the Government of Quebec to develop simulation models and forecast flows in certain waterways, snow melt and runoff. Quebec has been doing this for years. It is used to it. These activities obviously also provide the hydrological and hydraulic expertise required for proper water management. There is a lot of data on the ministry's website, including water levels, flows, flood zones and hydroclimatic forecasts. The Government of Quebec has the expertise necessary to protect the public from floods and droughts.

It appears to us that Environment Canada already has the authority to establish partnerships, both internationally and domestically, if the objective is to improve the services and practices of the Meteorological Service of Canada. This bill assumes that there is a need for coordination between the governments of the different provinces. However, it is not clear to us that this need is real. It is even less clear that it should be up to the federal government to oversee coordination between the provinces. They can establish relationships among themselves without the need for Ottawa's intervention.

Why does this bill imply that the Meteorological Service of Canada would not be able to perform the duties referred to in the current strategy outlined in the bill? I must admit that this confuses me. If the government is truly concerned about the issue of floods and droughts, why are these revelations not included directly in the budget? Why is there a bill presenting a strategy when we do not even know if we need a bill to have this strategy?

One thing is certain, however. The cost of inaction has skyrocketed in the meantime. Just look at the consequences of climate change. We commissioned a study on the topic. Over the past 10 years, insured disasters have cost an average of $2.5 billion per year. Last year was a record year, with $8.5 billion in insurable losses related to severe weather in Canada. The average amount paid out annually in claims for disasters in Quebec is $428 million, a number that will obviously continue to rise. We know that climate action costs much less than inaction, that every dollar invested in emissions reduction saves money, and that every dollar invested in adaptation saves $13 to $15 in avoided costs for damage. That is why adaptation is a priority for us.

Dealing with floods and droughts is a priority, but is it a priority to pass a bill and create a strategy that does not seem to require a bill to exist? That is why we are essentially also asking the government to set aside some money in the next budget. What makes adaptation so challenging is the need for money, the need for help for the provinces and municipalities. Municipalities in Quebec alone currently need $2 billion a year to adapt their infrastructure to climate change.

That is what we need, not a bill that leaves us feeling unconvinced. Obviously, we could stand to gain from being convinced. We always keep an open mind. However, for now, we have very specific demands. We included plenty of proposals in our election platform. Here are a few: Prepare people for the cost of climate change, increase the disaster mitigation and adaptation fund, protect and help people with insurance too, increase funding to prevent shoreline erosion, and ensure that the federal government makes transfers to local governments, which are in the best position to manage the consequences of climate change.

When we look at all this, it does not seem as though the government is serious about climate change. We are very concerned that we are having a big debate to initiate something that we do not need, when the government could move forward quickly on its own. The Bloc Québécois is serious about this climate crisis and we are going to take the bill that is before us seriously.

That said, for the moment, the Bloc Québécois is confused. We have serious questions about the need for this bill.

We need to be convinced.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a huge honour and privilege to rise tonight in support of Bill C-241, otherwise known as the national strategy on flood and drought forecasting act.

Rapidly shifting weather patterns and the existential threat posed by climate change have made extreme weather events more common and more devastating than ever. According to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, in 2023 and 2024 alone, drought-induced wildfires claimed about 22.5 million hectares of land, which is just over one-third of all hectares burned in the past 20 years. Floods, meanwhile, caused roughly $800 million in insured damages annually between 2014 and 2023.

We know that catastrophic weather events are both a symptom of and a contributing factor to the climate crisis we all face. However, mitigating the impacts of extreme weather events is not just an environmental issue; it is also a fiscal issue. Last week, the Parliamentary Budget Officer projected that spending on the disaster financial assistance arrangements will reach $1.8 billion annually between 2025 and 2034, making the next 10 years of disaster relief costlier than every single extreme weather event serviced by the DFAA since its founding in 1970.

This is not just a cost to government, either. In 2024, catastrophic weather events caused a record $8.5 billion in covered damages, squeezing insurers and everyday Canadians further during a cost of living crisis. GHD, a global engineering and architecture services firm, projects that the overall financial toll to Canada will reach at least $139 billion over the next 30 years. The cost of inaction is high and rising exponentially, making bold climate action the only fiscally responsible choice.

Further, it is a mental health imperative. On October 8, I put forward a motion in the House calling for a national strategy to address the mental health impacts of emergencies because the impacts of extreme weather events ripple far beyond the disaster itself. The trauma and grief that are often caused by losing homes, loved ones and a sense of security to extreme weather events cause and exacerbate mental health challenges for far too many Canadians.

It is also deeply important for reconciliation with indigenous peoples and justice for rural communities. Wildfire displacement disproportionately impacts first nations and indigenous communities, with indigenous people representing approximately 40% of all wildfire evacuees.

Earlier today, I spoke with Leah Main, a councillor in Silverton and a director of the Regional District of Central Kootenay. I would not say she is a city councillor, because her community is quite small. It is a town. She is here on FCM lobby days. She pointed out that despite rural communities being the places where climate mitigation is most necessary, they often do not have the capacity to adequately monitor or prepare for extreme weather events. We need to do better in supporting those small, rural communities.

As the federal NDP critic on emergency preparedness, I have been consistent in my support for proactive coordination across all levels of government to mitigate the impacts of extreme weather events. That is why I presented motions to establish a national fire administration for better coordination and a national aerial firefighting fleet as crucial measures to bring resources, information and true partnership to Canada's emergency preparedness systems. New Democrats have also championed the call for a youth climate corps to mobilize young Canadians looking for work toward renewable energy projects, emergency response efforts and more, to support climate mitigation and adaptation. We hope to see these priority investments for a climate-resilient Canada reflected in the upcoming federal budget.

As we advance the important work of climate change mitigation, Bill C-241 is a promising step in the right direction. Establishing a national strategy on flood and drought forecasting would have the potential to improve monitoring infrastructure in communities across Canada. If it is properly resourced and done in true partnership with provinces, territories, local communities and first nations and indigenous communities, better monitoring would support climate mitigation efforts, thereby saving lives, preventing devastation to local economies and tackling Canada's mental health emergency.

As far back as 2016, I have spoken in the House calling for a national flood strategy, so I appreciate the work done by the member for Terrebonne on this very important issue. I congratulate her for putting forward this private member's bill.

New Democrats will always stand up for working Canadians, rural communities and indigenous peoples. We will stay involved in the consultation and implementation process to ensure that those most impacted by extreme weather events are top of mind in the government's national flood and drought monitoring strategy.

[Carol Anstey, Conservative, Long Range Mountains, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the people of Long Range Mountains and on behalf of Canadians across the country to speak to Bill C-241, an act to establish a national strategy respecting flood and drought forecasting.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, our connection to water is part of our identity. In fact, we are one of only a few places in the world that has an island on an island on an island. We are literally surrounded by water. It shapes our history, our communities and our livelihoods. It is a part of who we are.

This bill would require the Minister of Environment to work with provinces, territories, indigenous governments, municipalities and industry partners to develop a coordinated national strategy for forecasting floods and droughts. Its purpose is to improve how Canada gathers and shares data to identify infrastructure at risk and strengthen our ability to anticipate and respond to extreme water events before they become disasters.

That is a goal every Canadian can understand. Whether they live beside the Fraser River, the Red, the Humber, or along the rugged coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, every Canadian knows what water can give and what it can take away. It connects us and sustains us. When it turns against us, it reminds us of how small we are against the power of nature. It also reminds us how strong we are when we face it together.

In Long Range Mountains, we have lived that truth many times. This past June, a severe rainstorm washed out major sections of road on the great northern peninsula, isolating multiple coastal communities. People found themselves cut off from emergency services, food and work simply because every road in and out was underwater or damaged. When the road is gone, so is the ability to move, and families are left waiting and worrying.

We also remember the devastation caused by hurricane Fiona in Port aux Basques in September 2022. Homes were torn away from their foundations and shorelines were carved away. We are still rebuilding today. Entire neighbourhoods were changed forever. That is how quickly water can reshape a community and the lives within it. Even before that, in November of 2021, storm after storm soaked western Newfoundland and Cape Breton, causing destructive flooding, damaged roads and infrastructure collapse. Every one of these events is a reminder that, whether there is too much water or too little, the results can be equally devastating.

This year, drought has been the challenge. Producers across Newfoundland and Labrador have endured one of the most difficult seasons in memory. Dairy, forage, fruit, vegetable, berry and honey producers have watched feed supplies vanish and transport costs soar. They are resilient, but they cannot do it alone.

Earlier this month, I wrote to the Dairy Farmers of Newfoundland and Labrador and to the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Agriculture to support their members during this crisis. I pointed to the AgriRecovery program as proof that co-operation between federal and provincial governments works when disaster strikes. A strong forecasting strategy could help those same producers act sooner to protect crops, animals and livelihoods before the damage is done. Better information leads to faster action and smarter recovery. Information saves dollars and early warning signs saves lives.

That is why we will support Bill C-241 at second reading, so that it can move forward to committee. We agree in principle, but we will insist that this is done responsibly. This strategy must use existing departmental resources. Canadians cannot afford another bureaucracy. It has to be about coordination and efficiency, not expansion.

As a member of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, I have seen how effective policy depends on fiscal discipline and respect for jurisdiction. Conservatives believe that protecting the environment and growing the economy can and must go hand in hand. At committee, we will press for guarantees that this strategy respects provincial and indigenous authority, builds on existing systems and delivers measurable results.

Floods and droughts may not stop at borders, but jurisdiction matters. The provinces and indigenous governments already manage their own water systems. Ottawa's role should be to coordinate and connect, not to control. Canadians do not need more taxes to change the weather. They need a government that helps them prepare for it.

Canada already leads the world in clean energy and responsible resource development. We should build on that success through partnership, not punishment.

A national forecasting strategy done well can give farmers, engineers and local officials access to reliable data before a crisis hits. When everyone has the same information, decisions are faster and communities are safer. Forecasting is not political; it is practical. By improving our ability to anticipate risk, we can prevent hardship, lower recovery costs and protect Canadians before disaster strikes.

We also believe that private insurance should be the first line of protection; taxpayers should not be footing the bill after every flood or drought. With accurate mapping and forecasting, insurers can assess risk fairly, homeowners can find affordable coverage, and public disaster funds can focus on the truly extraordinary events. That is fairness and fiscal responsibility working together.

Before entering public life, I spent years working in real estate, first in sales and later as a broker leading a team of agents across our communities. l spent countless hours looking at market data, helping my agents and clients understand the real costs of home ownership and the risks that come with it. l have seen first-hand how a single flood or storm can wipe out years of investment and how confusion over insurance or lack of affordable coverage leaves families exposed. That is why this issue matters to me, because protecting homes means protecting people's stability and their future.

The strategy must serve all of Canada, from large cities to rural, coastal and northern communities. When a road washes out on the Great Northern Peninsula or a drought forces farmers to import feed at enormous cost, the impact is equally real. Rural and agricultural voices must be part of the design.

Conservatives have long supported practical environmental stewardship. Since 2019, our party has called for co-operation with the provinces and territories to identify and protect key aquifers and improve water quality. Bill C-241 fits within that vision, provided it remains grounded in accountability and respect for jurisdiction.

Across Canada, from the farm fields of the Prairies to the coastal communities of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canadians share a deep respect for water. lt sustains our families, our farms and our communities. lt also reminds us that strong planning and strong partnerships are essential. We are learning that water can be unpredictable. Storms are stronger, droughts last longer and the costs continue to rise. That is why the legislation matters. lt gives us an opportunity to modernize how we prepare and respond, without adding more red tape or waste.

At the environment committee, Conservatives will focus on outcomes, not optics. We will push for measurable timelines, standardized data sharing, integration of indigenous water knowledge and transparent reporting to Parliament. We will hold the government accountable to ensure that the strategy delivers real results for Canadians.

Canadians understand the value of preparation. They know that good planning beats panic and that co-operation achieves more than division. We cannot control the storms, but we can control how ready we are when they come. That is what leadership looks like: practical, prepared and proud to protect Canadians.

Conservatives will support Bill C-241 at this stage because we believe in common-sense solutions that protect Canadians but also respect taxpayers. Let us build a strategy that does not grow government but grows Canada's capacity to face whatever tomorrow brings.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Terrebonne for introducing this bill. This subject is very important to me.

As members know, I am the member for the riding of Mirabel. A large part of my riding borders the Lac des Deux Montagnes. Folks in my riding are very familiar with extreme weather events that have a devastating impact on our built heritage and people's lives.

As everyone knows, in 2019, extreme weather events caused the Lac des Deux Montagnes to flood 2,500 homes with more than 60 inches of water, or much more in some places. Six thousand people were displaced. Lawsuits are still going. The financial toll was in the millions or tens of millions of dollars.

Understandably, when I go to my constituents and talk to them about policies to fight climate change, to adapt to it and mitigate its effects, people do not ask for an empty national policy with no budget and no teeth that does not amend the environmental legislation. No one ever asks me for that.

This government is not taking action. It was doing a little bit to fight climate change, promote adaptation and provide assistance, but this government is losing more and more ground. This kind of national strategy looks a bit like greenwashing. The government says it wants everybody to sit down, plot together, think about this issue and write a report so people think we are taking action. Droughts are happening, and there are ways to deal with them. Our farmers experience this every day.

Here is an example. Why does the government never talk to us about the possibility of enhancing AgriRecovery? In the previous Parliament, my colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé hounded the Minister of Agriculture for months because of extreme weather events in Quebec. There were some in my riding. Farms were flooded in Saint‑Janvier. We are facing challenges, and we have had droughts this year. The program was designed to use Canada-wide criteria, and, because it was so convoluted, no action was taken.

The current government has no idea what it is doing in the fight against climate change because this government is interested in just one thing: winning as many seats as possible and going with the flow, no pun intended, going wherever the wind blows it. This government eliminated the carbon tax. Quebec still has its own system. The federal tax did not apply in Quebec, and it still does not apply. It may be detrimental to our trade relationships because, starting next year, Europe will start enforcing its carbon border adjustment policy. Quebeckers will foot the tax bill for Canadians once again.

Industrial carbon pricing is at risk. The government has backpedalled when it comes to energy retrofits and electric vehicles. However, it needs to take action. There are phases in the development of new technologies. The early phases are expensive, and more measures need to be adopted. However, the government is backpedalling on such measures. The government woke up one Monday morning and decided that it is over. The Minister of Finance and National Revenue gave his word to our car dealers that they would be reimbursed for any rebates already given to customers for the purchase of EVs. Then he presented the estimates, but the money was not in those estimates. We had to fight for it.

It is hard to believe that the Prime Minister was once a UN special climate envoy. There are days when I look at him here, in the House, and think how miscast he is. The Prime Minister wrote a book called Values: Building a Better World for All. He spent much of his life talking about important values, claiming that boosting the value of the stock market or the amount of money in our pockets was not all that mattered in life. He said that we needed to stand together and care for the most vulnerable among us, who usually bear the brunt of climate events, as has been shown.

Once he came to power, however, he tossed out all the principles he supposedly held most dear and announced that what we urgently need is pipelines. He told us we need as much gas as possible, as fast as possible. How did he go from an economist known for his ambitious stance on fighting climate change to someone pitching oil today?

As members know, public life has its risks. When someone becomes prime minister or a candidate for party leader, people start to get interested in that person's financial affairs. People found out that the green funds, the environmental funds that the Prime Minister was investing in, were more brown than green. There was some greenwashing going on. Apparently the Prime Minister had an innate talent for greenwashing, as demonstrated by this bill.

We are being told that people are facing flooding, that they are facing droughts, that there is 60 inches of water in their homes, and that people are losing all their childhood mementoes. However, this bill essentially tells us that what these people need is a federal website to give them the weather forecast. People can tell when it is raining.

That is not what people need. They need resources.

There is going to be a budget. The government is jeering at us during question period, saying that we are not going to vote in favour of the budget and that we are going to trigger an election. The Bloc only has 22 members in the House. All we have done is present clear, costed demands. We made six demands.

Quebec's share is one-third of a percentage point of GDP. For the skilled mathematicians across the way, the Einsteins over there, it is one-third of a percentage point of GDP. How much less could we ask for? That is still too much. However, we are asking for that to include investments in infrastructure, resilient infrastructure.

The members for Vimy and Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel on the island of Montreal know that there are challenges related to resilient infrastructure, given the new rainfall levels and the large variations currently being recorded by precipitation gauges.

There are municipal elections coming up, and the Union des municipalités du Québec, or UMQ, and the Fédération québécoise des municipalités are asking for a transfer to Quebec so that that money can be redistributed. Everyone knows that building sewers does not win elections. However, we know that there are significant infrastructure needs. That is one of our budget requests.

The Liberals are introducing a bill with no budgetary impact and no royal recommendation. Those who were asking for infrastructure will not get any money for that because of the passage of Bill C‑5, so they will just get the weather forecast instead. After passing Bill C-5 under a gag order with the help of the Conservatives, the Liberals were in too much of a hurry to build a pipeline.

What can I say? I cannot say that we are going to vote for this.

There comes a point when we have to wonder why this bill does not amend any section of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. We even have to wonder whether it should be sent to committee. What could the committee do with it? Under parliamentary rules, the committee cannot change anything other than the sections of the act that are amended by the bill itself. However, this bill does not change anything. What can the committee do? Should the committee members sit around and twiddle their thumbs?

The member for Terrebonne has not done her job properly. Maybe she did not have enough time. Maybe she was busy doing something else. She is not even giving us the chance to put this bill through a modicum of parliamentary debate. Meanwhile, the budget is right around the corner.

For a long time now, the Bloc Québécois has been calling for an $875‑million increase in the disaster mitigation and adaptation fund. That would be a concrete measure that would have a meaningful impact on people's lives.

Do members know that this would cost less than one German submarine, and far less than four? This is one thing we are asking for.

They are asking for a co-insurance program. Insurers are coming to see us. I understand that houses will no longer be built in flood zones, but houses have already been built in certain areas. They will not be demolished, but there needs to be some sort of help to reassure these people, who are generally low-income earners. They do not have an answer to that. They are asking for $500 million for riverbank erosion, and that can be spread out over a few years.

However, here we have a bill that says the federal government will write a report and suggest, in a nicely put together strategy that no one will read, to do what Quebec is already doing. Quebec's environment ministry already has a system that does all that.

In all sincerity, it will be difficult for the Bloc Québécois to support this bill.

[The Speaker, Francis Scarpaleggia]

The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired, and the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the Order Paper.

The House resumed from October 28 consideration of the motion that Bill C-241, 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

[Jacques Ramsay, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Madam Speaker, it is my honour today to speak to the private member's bill, Bill C-241, an act to establish a national strategy respecting flood and drought forecasting, put forward by the MP for Terrebonne.

As always, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the people of La Prairie—Atateken.

Bill C-241 proposes the development of a national strategy to ensure that partners and stakeholders have access to the information they need to forecast floods and droughts.

Canadians are on the front lines of climate change. They are increasingly experiencing its devastating impacts in the form of extreme weather events such as heat waves, drought, wildfires, heavy rainfall, floods and powerful storms from coast to coast to coast. Flooding is the most common and costly disaster in Canada. In the past decade, floods cost nearly $800 million per year on average in insured losses. Similarly, droughts affect the economic viability of water-dependent sectors such as agriculture and lead to increased risk of destructive, costly wildfires.

Across Canada, 2025 was a significant drought year, with dry conditions deepening and spreading across much of the country. The lack of rainfall and the intense heat helped drive one of Canada's worst wildfire seasons on record, especially in the Prairies and British Columbia. In Manitoba and other provinces, farmers faced parched fields and stressed crops, as prolonged dryness threatened yields and strained water supplies. As the bill states, damages caused by flood and drought have risen in Canada and are expected to rise further due to extreme weather and water events related to climate change.

Access to comprehensive, high-quality data and information is essential to support water quantity forecasting, particularly as more and more Canadians are exposed to extreme weather and water events. A national strategy on drought and flood forecasting would ensure that Canadians can better respond to severe weather events and reduce the impact of climate change by accessing information required to make, in some cases, life-saving decisions.

The Government of Canada is already carrying out key activities in relation to flood and drought forecasting. For example, National Hydrological Services, under Environment and Climate Change's Meteorological Service of Canada, is the federal authority responsible for the collection, interpretation and dissemination of standardized water quantity data and information in Canada. The service administers a national hydrometric program by way of a collaborative cost-sharing partnership with provinces and territories.

Through this partnership, National Hydrological Services operates 2,300 water quantity monitoring stations on lakes and rivers across Canada. This represents 77% of the national program, with the remainder being operated by provincial and territorial partners. The data provided by this network of monitoring stations is made publicly available on the web in near real time. This provides an integrated view of surface water in Canada to all governments, as well as the academic and scientific communities, industry and the Canadian public, to support flood and drought forecasting, water management and emergency response across the country.

These hydrometric data, along with weather and other environmental data and analysis products generated using Environment and Climate Change weather and environmental modelling and high-performance computing systems, are essential to provincial and territorial forecasting programs. The data are also used to feed hydrologic prediction models that generate water quantity information and flow predictions products. These are shared with provincial and territorial governments to support them in their responsibilities related to hydrologic forecasting, transboundary water-sharing agreements and water regulation planning.

In budget 2025, the government proposes to invest $2.7 billion over nine years to modernize the Meteorological Service of Canada's high-performance computing capacity. This system runs the model required to produce accurate weather forecasts, alerts, warnings and climate projections, as well as the Meteorological Service's environmental data reanalyses and hydrologic prediction models.

Timely and accurate weather prediction is essential to key sectors of the economy, such as agriculture, transport and marine shipping, and helps Canadians make decisions to protect against adverse impacts of extreme weather, such as flooding. While flood forecasting and warnings are the responsibility of provinces and territories, Environment and Climate Change Canada works daily with provinces and territories to provide integrated briefings on weather-related conditions that may cause a threat to Canadians. Moreover, federal government departments and agencies work together in delivering critical services to Canadians in relation to flood and drought forecasting.

For example, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the department responsible for drought monitoring, uses Environment and Climate Change Canada's weather forecasts to issue drought forecasts. Natural Resources Canada leads flood mapping efforts to provide Canadians with critical information about their flood risks. The department also produces critical geospatial data used to urgently create maps and other near real-time data that are shared with Public Safety Canada and responders during ice jams or floods. Public Safety Canada plays a central role in coordinating the flood management efforts of federal departments and agencies during emergencies.

Despite all of the federal programs and initiatives, we know that flood and drought forecasting could be better coordinated across the country. An effective national strategy would build on programs that work well, such as those at Environment and Climate Change Canada. It would also identify ways to address existing gaps. We are already aware of some of them. These gaps include the lack of public awareness of flood risk data, the lack of information to identify and mitigate flood risks, and the potential lack of intergovernmental coordination on flood and drought forecasting.

Within five years of the strategy being tabled, the minister responsible must table a report on the strategy's effectiveness. This work will be done in collaboration with other relevant departments and in consultation with the provinces, municipalities, indigenous governing bodies, experts and stakeholders.

The global climate is changing and will continue to change, and Canada will be no exception. Extreme weather events will continue to occur, resulting in growing costs for our society. The need for a national strategy for flood and drought forecasting has never been greater.

That is why I am proud to say that the government supports Bill C-241. Although we support the bill, some provisions will need to be amended. We will encourage the committee to carefully review the provisions of the bill to ensure that the strategy does not duplicate measures that are already in place and to make the bill more effective in achieving its objectives. Nevertheless, I am very pleased to announce that the government will support Bill C-241.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to speak to Bill C-241 today.

It is important for us all to recognize, at the end of the day, that having a national strategy respecting drought and flooding and our ability to forecast is critically important. When I say that, I would obviously recognize the lead roles that provinces and municipalities play in dealing with local flooding and so forth.

I am going to highlight that in the province of Manitoba, just to give a better sense of why it is so important that we have a strategy, we have had occasion to experience all forms of disasters. Flooding is probably the biggest one. In fact, we have a premier who is still referenced today because of flooding. That was Premier Duff, because he constructed what we call Duff's Ditch. It was that premier's vision to try to avoid the types of floods that were devastating, in particular, for the city of Winnipeg, so the government back then decided what it wanted to do was to take the water coming into Manitoba and have it go around the city of Winnipeg. Before we had Duff's Ditch, Winnipeg was constantly being flooded.

Every time there is a flood in the province of Manitoba or any sort of a climate issue in Manitoba, it is the province that often plays the lead. Municipalities will also get deeply engaged because those are the communities that are more directly affected and they look to the province for guidance, and indigenous communities also. Floods have a very significant impact in those areas.

When we talk about the strategy being proposed through the legislation, we recognize that it is not something that Ottawa does alone. We have to be able to work with the different stakeholders, in particular those different levels of government. It is absolutely critically important. However, in developing that strategy, it is also important for us to recognize that the federal government already does play a role, directly and indirectly.

My colleague made reference to things such as Environment Canada, which, generally speaking, does an outstanding job at being able to forecast and predict both short-term and long-term weather conditions. Environment Canada works with the different jurisdictions when issues of drought or flooding come up. We have other departments as well. When a flood takes place, we have the department dealing with emergency services, whether it is disaster relief or public safety.

Ottawa does play a role in regard to the impacts of flooding and droughts. To that extent, I would argue that we need to see national coordination take place. Ultimately, by working with the different levels of government, we could come up with a strategy that could help in the long run. That is what we should be hoping to achieve.

Within the legislation, from what I understand, there is a tabling of a document. If the legislation were to pass, within two years we would see that tabling of a document. That document, I think, could help set a framework based on co-operation. That is what I believe would actually take place. Canadians as a whole, as has been demonstrated by the Prime Minister and the discussions we have had with regard to things such as the one Canadian economy, respond very positively when they see the different levels of government working together.

The issue is serious. I have had first-hand experience. A couple of years ago, I was north of the beautiful community of Gimli, taking a tour of a cattle farm. The farmer was telling me about the drought conditions and how they needed to see more water on the ground. In other areas of the province, we had more of a flooding condition that was taking place: too much water.

I honestly believe that there is more we can do as a society to better manage the water that comes through snow and rain and so forth. The management is so important. That is why I was so pleased when the government of the day made the decision to have the Water Agency located in the province of Manitoba, in Winnipeg, for all of Canada, to look at ways in which we can improve not only the quality of water but, I would ultimately argue, the management of water.

If members think of the prairie provinces, I can tell them that it is a very serious issue. I hear about it in Saskatchewan. I know the concerns that Alberta has in regard to wanting to be able to retain water and use it for irrigation and other issues.

At the end of the day, in the province of Manitoba, we are very much concerned about the quality and the quantity of water that is coming into our province. It is not just an issue for Manitoba alone. We need to have something that goes broader, outside of the province. When I look at the legislation, I commend my friend and colleague for bringing it in, because we have recognized the importance of how the federal government can and should play a stronger role.

When we think of climate change today, we see that it is more extreme. More and more, we are seeing flooding. We are seeing disasters, whether they are fires, droughts or other disasters. I think it begs the question of what we are doing as a House of Commons, as parliamentarians, to address this growing issue into the future. That is why I look at the legislation as a visionary idea to bring forward.

I make reference to the two years. Not only does it have a mandate for two years; I believe that it also has an assessment that takes place five years later. We are not just saying that we want to have a committee and that the committee comes in and provides a report after doing a considerable amount of consultation and working together and coming up with that strategy. We also want to take a look at it a number of years later, formally, the first one tabled here in the House and the second one an assessment in terms of how it is processed or what has actually taken place over the years. How effective has it been? Are there ways in which we can improve the situation? I think that is something that is a very positive aspect of the legislation.

One of the reasons I would like to think that the member vested a great deal of energy in presenting the bill that is before us today is that, because it is a private member's bill, we have programming. We know that after two hours of debate, it is going to go into committee. That is the nice thing about private members' bills. I think we need to have more programming for government bills, but that is another debate for another day.

The point is that this is substantial legislation. It is sensitive to our environment. It helps all concerned, the many different stakeholders. It is legislation that we should all get behind and support, and I applaud the member for bringing it in.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Abbotsford, BC]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to address Bill C-241, which proposes the creation of a national strategy for flood and drought forecasting.

While the intent to improve coordination and data sharing is commendable, the bill risks becoming yet another Ottawa-driven exercise in paperwork rather than delivering real solutions. Canadians have seen first-hand the devastation of floods and droughts, from Abbotsford's submerged farmlands to Lytton's compounded disasters of fires, landslides and so on. They know that forecasting alone does not save lives or homes.

Our communities need timely funding, streamlined approvals and regional collaboration to turn warnings into action. Bill C-241 offers promises on paper while families in my community, and in my former riding, remain vulnerable on the ground.

In November 2021, British Columbia endured an atmospheric river that devastated communities across the Fraser Valley and interior. Abbotsford's Sumas Prairie was submerged, highways and rail lines were washed out, and the village of Lytton, already scarred by wildfire, faced impossible recovery hurdles. These events were not isolated. They disrupted national supply chains and cost billions of dollars in lost trade and other related damages.

The failures we witnessed were not due to a lack of forecasting models. Environment Canada and the provincial agency had already issued flood warnings. We knew we were at risk of another flood. The real breakdown was in preparedness, funding and execution. Communities had data but lacked the resources and authority to act accordingly.

The irony is stark. While Ottawa drafts strategies to predict disasters, British Columbia lived through one, armed with forecasts but abandoned when it came to action and funding. Today, we still have not received infrastructure dollars to improve regions where we know other disasters are predictable and foreseeable.

While I acknowledge the positive intention of the bill and the previous one that was in the last Parliament, I continue to worry about why the federal government is ignoring the critical infrastructure needs of British Columbia. In Lytton, after the wildfire, and subsequent landslides and flooding, the village could not access federal mitigation programs like DMAF, because applications demanded extensive engineering analysis, something a town with one public works employee simply could not provide. Bill C-241 does nothing to address these capacity gaps or the reality of remote and indigenous communities.

In Abbotsford, when Sumas Prairie was inundated in November 2021, the devastation was unprecedented. Thousands were evacuated; tens of thousands of livestock were lost, and Highway 1, the backbone of Canada's supply chain, was closed for nine days. The city responded quickly, developing a $2-billion flood-mitigation plan within six months, including new dykes, pump station upgrades and designated floodways.

However, despite the urgency, federal funding calls under the disaster mitigation and adaptation fund were closed. By the time applications reopened, critical months had passed, leaving Abbotsford vulnerable and forcing the city to shoulder many interim costs alone.

Mayor Ross Siemens expressed his frustration bluntly:

To find that our application was denied, that the City of Abbotsford won't be receiving the funding support that we need to protect our community from a future flood disaster, that is brutally devastating news.... We feel completely abandoned by our federal government.

According to an article, he added that “they were told that if the province was on board, they would likely get the DMAF money.” He said:

That is brutally devastating news and shows a blatant disregard for our city, our region, our economy and, quite frankly, a disrespect for the fairness of due process.

I asked federal officials, after that devastating news happened in my community, whether they had even engaged with the city of Abbotsford, after the photo ops and people had left. The answer was no.

Four years later, recovery work is nearing completion, but Abbotsford remains far from flood-proof. Merritt and Princeton remain far from flood-proof. Lytton is only building up now.

This experience illustrates a core flaw in Bill C-241 and the broader approach to major disasters in Canada. Forecasting alone does not protect communities. Abbotsford is a mid-sized city. It had data and plans but lacked timely funding and streamlined approvals. Without access to climate change mitigation dollars and a government model that empowers local action, families in flood plains will remain exposed not only in Abbotsford but in other parts of the country. This is not because we cannot predict the next flood, but because we have failed to act in respect of climate adaptation and infrastructure investments that account for increased population and other factors, such as the forestry sector and the impact it has on our waterways.

I have another quick example. After the floods, the District of Kent reinforced its dikes, but the flood risk shifted downstream to Seabird Island first nation, which had little protection. Again, I raise that point in the context of remote and indigenous communities, which do not seem to be properly addressed in this legislation.

Bill C-241, to my point, ignores the need for regional coordination and infrastructure, not just data sharing with the federal government. In summary, we have to look at jurisdictional overreach. The bill centralizes forecasting under Ottawa, but provinces already manage the system. What communities need is funding for mitigation, not another federal report.

My second point is that there is no funding mechanism. I recognize that this is a private member's bill, but the call for flood infrastructure in B.C. has been loud and clear.

Third, there are delayed timelines. The bill outlines two years to table a strategy and five years for an effectiveness report. We have all seen these tabled in Parliament. Frankly, why can the public servants not do this already? Why can the deputy minister not report to Parliament? Why do we need legislation like this in the first place? It is more bureaucracy.

Fourth, I would have hoped a bill like this would address the insurance crisis. Flood insurance remains inaccessible for many homeowners. Without reforms to make coverage mandatory and to broaden our policies federally on insurance, we are still going to run into many of the issues we faced in British Columbia because of the need for change.

What did we learn in 2021? We learned that disasters demand speed, flexibility and local empowerment. Local governments need continuous access to mitigation funds. We need improved cost-sharing models for rural and indigenous communities that do not have the capacity of mid-sized or large cities. Funding for public infrastructure needs to be brought in with higher standards to account for floods as well.

We also need an integrated regional model. For example, we have mayors from metro Vancouver coming to Ottawa who are demanding one thing for infrastructure, yet the demands in the Fraser Valley just a few kilometres away are different. That has never been coordinated. This legislation would not address the elephant in the room around the things that we need fixed in British Columbia.

In closing, Canadians deserve more than forecasts. They deserve action. We need a plan that delivers real dollars for mitigation, regional coordination and insurance reform. We do not need another Ottawa-driven report tabled in Parliament. Let us learn from what happened in B.C. Forecasting alone will not save lives. We knew the flood was coming in 2021. Investment and execution do save lives.

I implore the Liberal members of cabinet who have ignored me, who have ignored my community, to listen. I plead with them to help us, help Abbotsford, help Lytton and help the Fraser Canyon. All of Canada's trade to the port of metro Vancouver goes through my riding. They have ignored us. If this were Montreal or Toronto, the money would have already been spent. The upgrades would have already been done. However, we are not treated the same way in British Columbia, and that is not right.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-241, which seeks to create a new federal structure to improve flood and drought forecasting.

We all share the same goal, namely, to better anticipate climate events that are becoming more frequent, more severe and more costly. However, the proposed solution is not the right one. A careful reading of this bill reveals one thing that really stands out. It does not grant any new powers, impose any obligations on the government or provide any real resources. Bill C-241 does not solve any concrete problems. Above all, it fails to address federal inaction.

The Meteorological Service of Canada already has the mandate needed to produce forecasts, warnings and hydrometeorological models. Environment and Climate Change Canada already has all the tools it needs within its own legislation to modernize its capabilities, collaborate with Quebec and the provinces and support existing systems. If these tools are insufficient, the government should have started by amending the law and strengthening what already exists. However, Bill C-241 does not change anything. A system cannot be improved by simply announcing a new structure on paper.

The bill talks about supercomputers, sophisticated models and a national co-operative service. However, the most basic questions remain unanswered. Who decides? Who runs things, and with what money? There are no specific directions, scientific responsibilities or clear mechanisms for coordination in the text. In an emergency, ambiguity is dangerous.

When a river overflows or the ocean breaks through dikes, the last thing our municipalities need is an additional and duplicate structure. Clarity saves lives. Duplication creates confusion. Creating a new federal structure means creating positions, offices and procedures. Meanwhile, municipalities have been waiting a long time to receive the support that was announced. Back home in the Lower St. Lawrence, people know this. While the paperwork makes its way from one department to the next, the waves wait for no one.

In the meantime, Quebec has made progress. We have world-class scientific expertise tailored to our land and waterways. One example is CEQUEAU, a hydrologic model developed by the Institut national de recherche scientifique that simulates the flow of water in rivers and watersheds and is used to predict floods. There is also Ouranos, a Quebec consortium known for the accuracy of its regional climate models. Another example that I am very proud of is the Institut des sciences de la mer de Rimouski, in my riding, which models coastal storms, erosion, ice and the unique characteristics of the St. Lawrence River. These are not abstract concepts; they are tools that protect real communities.

People in my region, the Lower St. Lawrence, have not forgotten the high tides of December 2010. That evening, waves several metres high struck Sainte-Flavie and Sainte-Luce with tremendous force. Some homes were damaged, some shifted. The main road was swept away by the sea, and the coastline receded in a single night. It was not a trivial matter for us. It was a clear sign of what climate change would bring to our region.

Since then, experts have confirmed it. Rising sea levels, the disappearance of the ice that once protected our coasts and more intense storms are accelerating erosion in eastern Quebec. What used to happen once in a generation is now happening much more often. Our coastal municipalities have been fighting for too long, practically alone. They do not need a new office in Ottawa. They need a reliable, involved and consistent partner.

Quebec, for its part, has adopted a modern legal framework with its Act to affirm the collective nature of water resources and to promote better governance of water and associated environments, as well as its Act respecting the conservation of wetlands and bodies of water. Quebec plans its interventions at the watershed level, as recommended by international best practices, and it already shares its hydrological data with its partners, which would be a good thing at the federal level as well.

We must also remember a simple constitutional truth: Waterway management, land use planning and emergency preparedness fall under the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces. Canada is made up of many nations. To suppose that a single centralized model can serve such disparate realities is to ignore the fact that the risks, territories and jurisdictions are diverse.

Let us not forget the St. Lawrence River, a living and complex river that calls for detailed, local, place-based expertise. The government is grappling with soaring climate costs, but it is doing nothing to curtail the causes of climate change. Over the past 10 years, natural disasters have cost the country more than $2.5 billion a year. In Quebec, compensation increases year after year, and insurance premiums rise accordingly. In many cases, less fortunate households are located in the most vulnerable areas. Adaptation is not just an infrastructure issue; it is also a social justice issue. In my region, the Lower St. Lawrence, farmers' soils are drying out, their crops are less robust and their costs are going up. Hydrological forecasting is not a luxury; it is crucial to food security.

There is a fundamental disconnect here. The government is proposing a new structure for predicting climate disasters while it continues to support oil and gas projects that make climate change worse. Improving our ability to predict storms while funding what makes them more violent makes no sense.

That is why the Bloc Québécois is proposing concrete measures: enhance the disaster mitigation and adaptation fund, provide more support to fight shoreline erosion, and implement a co-insurance program to protect households located in the most at-risk areas. These are not mere suggestions. These are realistic, workable solutions that people want to see.

Bill C‑241 does not build any real capacity. It does not address any weaknesses within the Meteorological Service of Canada. It does not respect the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces. It does not help municipalities, which are already dealing with the climate crisis every day.

The climate emergency requires political courage, not imaginary structures. It requires results, not intentions. Quebec does not need a new federal structure. It needs the federal government to finally do its part. What is missing today is not a national strategy. What is missing is the will to act.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the House to represent our beautiful riding of Nanaimo—Ladysmith, a part of our country that is shaped in every way by water. Our sea, our rivers, our swimming holes, our creeks and our wetlands are an intrinsic part of our identity. They are where we fish, farm and play; where our kids swim in the summer; and where many of us first fell in love with the great outdoors.

On Vancouver Island, our water is not only beautiful; it is vitally useful. Properly harnessed, it provides us with clean, renewal energy. It nourishes the crops that feed our families. It incubates our salmon and provides inspiration for our cultural traditions. On Vancouver Island, water is fundamental to our lives. Whether it is the Nanaimo River, Haslam Creek, Westwood Lake, or Colliery Dam, our community feels a deep, personal connection to these places. Like most powerful forces, water needs to be respected, revered and conserved. When it rains, it pours for days on Vancouver Island, and when it does not rain, the grass turns brown, the earth cracks and the landscape becomes tinder just waiting for a match.

The chaos resulting from extreme weather in B.C. threatens not just our livelihoods, but our very lives. Floods, earthquakes, tsunami warnings, droughts and wildfires uproot our lives and threaten to scatter us to the wind. Local farmers tell us about drought and water insecurity, which threatens livestock, stresses irrigation systems and creates the conditions for deadly wildfires. On the other side of the ledger, flooding can contaminate soil, erode coastlines, knock out power and wash away roads. Water is at the centre of almost every risk calculation we make. Water is part of our identity, but water can be volatile: too much or too little can threaten our lives.

This brings me to Bill C-241, which we are discussing today. One thing that unites people everywhere is our desire to know the weather forecast, along with the knowledge of the reality that it is usually wrong. However, we keep trying to predict the weather, and in Canada, doing that, like with many other things, means navigating the complex web of federal and provincial powers laid out in our Constitution.

The federal government provides much of our weather forecasting through the Meteorological Service of Canada, but the provinces and territories are responsible for flood forecasting and issuing flood warnings. The provinces and territories also have jurisdiction over specific applications and emergency management activities within their boundaries. The federal government predicts the weather, while the provinces and the territories manage the response on the ground to the impacts of that weather. What could go wrong?

Bill C-241, in a way, takes a crack at making one flood and drought forecasting strategy out of 13. It would require three federal ministers to work together, along with the provinces and territories, to develop a national strategy around flood and drought forecasting in the hopes of generating the information we need to better plan for these events. This is a noble cause, and as a means to greater collaboration, I support sending the bill to committee. I applaud my colleague across the aisle for raising these issues and facilitating this important debate. However, hope, as we all know, is not a strategy, and as an end in itself, the bill before us falls woefully short.

The past few years have shown how vulnerable British Columbia is to extreme weather, yet the federal government has not provided the support that farmers, homeowners and small businesses need to prepare and recover. Floods in B.C. and beyond have destroyed farms and livestock and left families facing massive repair bills, but federal programs have been slow, confusing, inadequate and underfunded. Many communities, including those that my colleagues have spoken of today, are still waiting for the promised assistance or have been told they do not qualify because the programs were not designed for disasters of this kind, scale, scope or whatever.

Instead of working with the province to build a faster and more reliable response system, the government has left people to navigate red tape while they are already under enormous financial and emotional strain. Canada's current model of disaster compensation is one under which taxpayers cover much of the cost of major flood events, and it is increasingly unsustainable as more and more insurance companies include carve-outs in their contracts that specifically exclude compensation.

Better forecasting and mapping could make private insurance more valuable, reducing the burden on the public purse. This is a point worth studying further in committee. If improved modelling can reduce risk and improve predictability, families and small businesses may have more affordable insurance options while taxpayers may face lower costs after major storms, but it is all a question of implementation and execution.

Provincial jurisdiction also needs to be respected. Water management is primarily a provincial responsibility, and communities on Vancouver Island rightly expect collaboration, not intrusion, from Ottawa. It is incumbent upon the government to ensure that coordination does not turn into federal overreach, as it does in so many cases. It means making sure the provinces can access shared tools and shared data when they need them. It means ensuring that modelling developed with public funds is accessible, standardized and usable across the country.

That standardization is crucial. Right now, rainfall, soil, moisture, lake levels, snowpack and stream-flow data are collected differently across different regions. This makes forecasting harder and emergency response slower. Any national strategy must ensure that provinces, municipalities, indigenous governments and industry can all share and interpret data in ways that are consistent and reliable.

I want to remind the government about the need to invest in the aging infrastructure needed to support major weather events like floods. In my community, Nanaimo Regional General Hospital is the backbone of emergency care, not only for Nanaimo but for much of the island, including in the case of flooding and tsunamis that could come with an earthquake. When roads wash out and communities are cut off, it becomes the critical hub for treatment, evacuation and coordination. However, NRGH's patient tower was built in 1963, making it the oldest on the island and one of the oldest of its kind in use anywhere in the country. It is not earthquake-proof, and in a real disaster, whether it is a coastal surge, widespread flooding or a seismic event, we might just not have it to rely on.

Local advocates have done a fabulous job of sounding the alarm, but the Liberal government's latest budget sets aside only $5 billion over three years for health care infrastructure, including medical schools, across the entire country. It is nowhere near enough to help the provinces rebuild aging hospitals, reduce wait times or ensure that every Canadian has access to a family doctor. The government cannot convince Canadians that $5 billion is a big number while trying to convince us that $78.3 billion, when it comes to a deficit, is a small one. All that tells us that the government is not focused on building the infrastructure we need to withstand floods, earthquakes and tsunamis.

If we expect NRGH to serve as a lifeline during the next major flood or emergency and to provide safe, modern care every other day of the year, we need the federal government to recognize that nation building includes building hospitals with Canadian lumber, Canadian steel and Canadian know-how.

When I meet with families who love their local swimming holes, farmers who depend on predictable water supply or volunteers restoring local creeks, the message is the same: Our water systems are changing, and we need the tools to understand those changes and better coordinate our response to them.

I will support Bill C-241 at second reading so that the committee can examine it carefully, strengthen it and ensure that it remains practical, efficient and respectful of jurisdiction.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-241 raises the major issue of flood and drought prevention. These phenomena are no longer isolated incidents. They have become recurring realities that disrupt our communities, weaken our infrastructure, and threaten our economy.

The numbers cannot be denied. Over the past 10 years, the average cost of insured disasters in Canada has been $2.5 billion a year. Last year, we reached an all-time high of $8.5 billion in insurable weather-related losses. That is the cost of climate change.

In Quebec, an average of $428 million a year is spent on compensation for climate disasters. These amounts are not abstract. They are very real. They represent destroyed homes, closed businesses, displaced families. They represent lives turned upside down.

That is not all. Prolonged droughts are affecting our agricultural producers. According to the Association des producteurs maraîchers du Québec, half of all vegetable growers have no insurance against drought-related losses because they cannot afford it. Meanwhile, municipalities are imposing water restrictions, and some even have to import drinking water.

We have seen forest fires ravage our forests. We have seen catastrophic floods force 6,000 people to leave their homes; that is what happened with the Lac des Deux Montagnes in 2019. In the riding of La Pointe-de-l'Île, we are also feeling the effects. We have to spend millions of dollars to combat riverbank erosion, and power outages are becoming more and more frequent.

These phenomena are all amplified by climate change, which the Liberal government has decided to ignore, pretending that it does not exist or making it even worse by investing in oil.

The Bloc Québécois recognizes the importance of improving forecasting and coordination, but why create a new federal structure when the Meteorological Service of Canada already exists and Quebec's environment ministry has recognized expertise, with 230 hydrometric stations that collect, analyze and disseminate data on water levels, flows and flood zones?

Bill C-241 is a distraction. It does not amend any provisions of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. It does not explain at all why these services cannot be provided by the Department of Environment's current meteorological services. I am actually a little surprised that my Conservative colleagues seem to want to support this bill at second reading, because, more than anything, I see it as another layer of bureaucracy.

Why would it be useful or necessary to create a new government organization in parallel to the Meteorological Service of Canada? There is no new funding. There are no concrete measures to support the provinces and municipalities. All the bill does is announce a strategy and schedule a report in two years' time. Meanwhile, disasters continue and costs soar.

Is the bill a response to the crisis or is it a communications exercise? Is it a tool for action or a smokescreen to create the appearance of action? The answer is obvious. It is all smoke and mirrors.

The Bloc Québécois is clear: We want concrete action. We want immediate investments to strengthen infrastructure resilience, support farmers, protect citizens and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

What do we see? We see some concerning setbacks: the elimination of consumer carbon pricing proposed by the Conservatives and supported by the Liberals; the suspension of electric vehicle incentives; and the scrapping of the zero-emission vehicle strategy. The government talks about adaptation, but is turning its back on addressing the underlying causes of the problem. It makes no sense.

We are proposing clear, costed demands: increase the disaster mitigation and adaptation fund by $875 million; create a co-insurance program for flood-prone areas to protect vulnerable households; invest $500 million to combat shoreline erosion; and transfer funds to municipalities, which are best positioned to manage the consequences of climate change.

These are tangible measures. They respond to the real needs of communities. They would have an immediate impact. If we want to improve flood and drought forecasting, we need to focus on smart co-ordination, not the bureaucratic centralization that the Liberals are once again trying to impose.

The Quebec government already provides the public with weather, hydrological and flood forecasts. For example, the Vigilance web application provides 48-hour flood forecasts for many rivers in southern Quebec. To prevent flooding, Quebec uses numerical environmental forecasting, which is based on the collection of recent meteorological and hydrological data, including temperature, precipitation and snow accumulation on the ground, as well as numerical models. These numerical models simulate environmental processes, meaning the interactions between different components of the environment, such as the atmosphere, water, soil, vegetation and ecosystems, in order to predict how they will change over time.

The federal government's role should be to facilitate the exchange of information, to fund advanced research and modelling and to support provinces and municipalities in their adaptation efforts.

Quebeckers do not want a federal website that tells them it is raining. They want roads that do not collapse, houses that do not flood and farms that survive droughts. They want a government that takes action, not piles of reports.

That is our position. I think it is shameful to see the Liberal government abandon climate action. Indeed, an environmentalist, the former head of Equiterre, resigned from his position as minister. That is very symbolic. We will see what happens next, but if we do not get our act together, we are heading in a direction where we will see more and more environmental disasters, and bureaucracy is not going to solve the problem.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

I would like to recognize the hon. member for Terrebonne for her right of reply.

[Tatiana Auguste, Liberal, Terrebonne, QC]

Madam Speaker, before I begin, I want to acknowledge that we are gathered on the traditional unceded territory of the Anishinabe Algonquin nation.

We have debated Bill C-241 on the national strategy for flood and drought prevention. I think it is essential to speak to the House about the fact that this bill deals with an issue that directly affects the safety, well-being and resilience of our communities. Extreme weather events are now part of everyday life in many regions. Every year, municipalities across the country see their infrastructure weakened, their roads submerged, their soil dried out and their homes flooded.

I am thinking of my own riding of Terrebonne, where I have seen first-hand the very real effects of heavy rains. Sudden rainfall events, unexpected flooding, and erosion risks are not simply meteorological phenomena. They are part of our daily lives. When the Mascouche River or the Mille Îles River threaten to overflow, it is about more than just hydrological data. These are families who fear losing their homes, business owners who risk losing everything, and infrastructure that is being put to the test. That is precisely why Bill C-241 is essential. It proposes establishing a national strategy for flood and drought forecasting based on coordination and transparency.

If this strategy is to be truly effective, we need high-quality, consistent data. Today, each province, territory and indigenous government collects its own hydrological information using different instruments, observation networks that vary from region to region, and analytical methods that are not always compatible. These differences create silos that limit our collective ability to effectively anticipate floods and droughts. To move forward together, we need to narrow these gaps and strengthen interoperability. Bill C-241 does not seek to centralize or remove these powers, but rather to bring together this knowledge and these tools around a shared objective, namely, to strengthen our capacity to anticipate and prevent hydrological disasters.

Experts from across Canada, including UQAM, the University of Saskatchewan and across Quebec, are telling us how important good data coordination is. In this context, data sovereignty is essential if we are to have full control over our forecasting capabilities. Today, our country still relies on data provided by foreign agencies, such as NASA in the United States. While useful, this data has sometimes proven to be inaccurate or ill-suited to Canada's unique realities. Bill C-241 aims precisely to correct that dependence by strengthening our autonomy and ensuring that our decisions are based on data produced here for our own needs.

It proposes a co-operative model where information collected by different jurisdictions can be interconnected and analyzed jointly. That will allow us to offer all municipalities, from coast to coast to coast, the means to respond faster, to plan smarter and to protect their residents. The costs of doing nothing are already immense. In 2024 alone, insured losses related to climate events in Canada reached $8.5 billion. Tropical storm Debby caused $2.7 billion in insured damages in Quebec, and thousands of residents had to be temporarily relocated.

Bill C-241 provides a national framework for planning infrastructure, improving access to data, coordinating responses and, ultimately, saving lives. We need to choose prevention over reaction, coordination over isolation and resilience over vulnerability because so much more than property damage is at stake. At stake are people with faces, names and addresses, members of our communities. I invite my colleagues to support this bill so that we can work together on building a Canada that is better prepared to meet climate challenges.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

The question is on the motion.

If a member participating in person wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division, or if a member of a recognized party participating in person wishes to request a recorded division, I invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

[Tatiana Auguste, Liberal, Terrebonne, QC]

Madam Speaker, I request a recorded division.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

Pursuant to Standing Order 93, the division stands deferred until Wednesday, December 3, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.

The House resumed from December 2 consideration of the motion that Bill C-241, An Act to establish a national strategy respecting flood and drought forecasting, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[The Speaker, Francis Scarpaleggia]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at second reading of Bill C-241 under Private Members' Business.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #52

[The Speaker, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I declare the motion carried. Accordingly, the bill stands referred to the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development.

(Bill read the second time and referred to a committee)

[The Speaker, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I wish to inform the House that, because of the deferred recorded divisions, the time for Government Orders will be extended by 28 minutes.