Environment Committee on April 9th, 2024

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

What can the federal government do?

[Laura Reinsborough]

I see that the need to bring together the strategy at a national, federal level provides a lot of opportunities for the data to be confirmed. The data that provinces have can be confirmed. That could also be confirmed...not rolled out on a grand scale and provided in a top-down manner, but done in concert with the information and data available from more local contexts.

There is a lot of opportunity that can come by bringing those together.

[Larissa Holman]

The federal government also has the capacity to support some of these initiatives. As we heard from the previous witnesses, there are a lot of great examples in different parts of the country, and having that communication from a national perspective will only help to improve models at a local level.

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

Finally, do you think we can learn a lot from the experience that we had here in 2017 and 2019, which can apply to coast to coast, whatever the river is?

[Laura Reinsborough]

Similar what Ms. McFadyen was saying, we saw people coming to organizations like Ottawa Riverkeeper to find out what was happening. We hold a level of trust with the community. I think there is a role where organizations at the watershed level and at the local level can help to ensure that there is confidence among the public about what is happening in that panic moment of an extreme event.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Madam Taylor Roy, go ahead, please.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just want to follow up on that.

You said a number of interesting things regarding the sharing of local knowledge. It's been mentioned a few times that expertise developed in regions can be shared.

I know that Public Safety Canada was developing a national risk profile for Canada. In doing so, they were integrating scientific evidence and input from stakeholders nationwide to improve understanding of disaster risks in all sectors of society.

I was wondering if you knew anything about this and whether you think this could be used as a model for how local information is brought into planning the flood forecasting.

Could you also comment on how you see the dissemination of that information, the communication between different municipalities or areas across Canada?

I'm directing that to the Ottawa Riverkeepers.

[Larissa Holman]

I don't believe we're familiar with the risk assessment that you spoke of. It's not something that we've responded to directly. It sounds like it would be an important step to be taking when trying to understand how to properly put in place flood forecasting.

One thing that we have looked at is changes in flow and how flow is shifting in river systems, specifically the Ottawa River watershed. What we are seeing is that flooding events—and this is not a huge surprise, especially this year when it is so warm and dry so early—are happening earlier. That's not just this year. We looked at it in 30-year data sets to try to capture that from a climate perspective. Not only is spring flooding happening earlier, but summer periods of low flow are being extended for longer periods of time.

We're definitely seeing impacts of changes in river flow. That would definitely inform when people would need to be prepared for flooding events, which are beginning to happen earlier, and a stronger understanding of what can be done to prepare earlier in the season.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you very much.

My next question is for Mr. Sandford from the UN University Institute.

You mentioned that you feel like we're chasing after climate change with a hope of catching up right now. We've heard several questions around this bill regarding the cost of putting in place a national flood and drought forecasting system.

Often it seems that people are focused on the cost of something without looking at the cost of not putting it in place. I was wondering if you could address some of the specific things you talked about like the impacts on national security, human migration and conflict zones.

Could you address broadly the cost of not dealing with these climate events that are happening and not taking action to stop the increase in greenhouse gases in climate change and heating up the planet? What do those costs generally look like to our planet?

[Robert Sandford]

First of all, I thank you for that very, very important question and observation. We are only beginning to see just what those costs might look like. We first have to determine exactly what kinds of impacts we're talking about.

When climate change migrations become a crisis of national security, the costs can be quite dramatic in terms of the loss of GDP, productivity, stability, public health costs, security costs and so on. When you get large portions of the world's population undergoing exactly the same types of pressures, the costs can be absolutely beyond imagination.

I think Dr. Pomeroy put it quite well in his statement when he said that we have many of the elements in place. We're one of the countries that are very fortunate to have university programs that have been publicly funded over a long period of time and that can allow us to get ahead of those costs. Clearly, for a very long time we've been saying that the cost of no action is much greater than the cost of acting on it. This is one way of acting on it where costs can be minimal compared with what the absolutely shattering economic and social impacts and mental health impacts could be if we don't.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

To follow up on that, part of the difficulty is in actually estimating the cost of inaction, whereas the cost of a program, such as putting in place a flood and drought forecasting system, can be fairly well known, especially through the Canada water agency. When we look to these costs of inaction, people are often at a loss to try to come up with numbers. How do you suggest that we deal with that issue? Often we see that people don't address it, or don't try to estimate it, and we're left with just the costs of action.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Can you answer that in about 15 seconds, Mr. Sandford?

[Robert Sandford]

Okay.

I think that's been well brought up. What happens is that we know what the costs are of damage. If we calculated the cost of producing a strategy or an action on this, I'm sure the answer would be a fraction of those costs.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Ms. Pauzé, the floor is yours.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thanks as well to all the witnesses for being with us.

Mr. Sanford, in your opening remarks, I think you painted the most comprehensive picture of the impact of climate change on human life as a whole. In particular, you discussed agriculture, health and climate refugees. You pretty much covered the waterfront.

I recently read an article that was published on the subject in March. Western Canadian farmers, for example, have been experiencing drought for many years now, particularly in Alberta. Alberta farmers, and even the province's oil companies, are preparing for a water shortage. I found it quite interesting to read the article because, as we know, oil sands operations are the leading source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada, and even those companies, which want to increase production, are now facing a water shortage. Ultimately, I consider it quite risky that the oil companies aren't improving their processes to address climate change.

We know that floods and droughts are natural phenomena that are amplified by climate upheavals. I think government authorities should rely on science to guide their decision-making. Would you please expand on what's happening internationally in this area, apart from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which you told us about? Why is Canada lagging so far behind, since it seems to me that's what you said in your opening remarks. How can we compensate for that?

[Robert Sandford]

First of all, I think it's important to recognize that agriculture is your baseline economic sector that we're talking about here. If agriculture has serious difficulties in productivity, and great costs and damage, etc., it will work its way up the entire economic ladder throughout the whole country.

I think it's fair to say that we're not necessarily lagging behind other countries. Other countries are trying to manage this and grasp what we are seeing as projections for the future, especially with respect to population dynamics and disruptions. But I don't think any country yet has fully come to terms with how rapidly this is happening and how extensive these changes could be if we are not very effective in moving as quickly as we can, in the ways that we can, to protect our populations and to predict as much as we can, in advance as much as we can, what these kinds of impacts might mean on a seasonal and annual basis.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

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

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

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

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

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

[Laura Reinsborough]

One recommendation we have is that the federal government could create this strategy, but there is also a need to ensure that we are still gaining the kind of long-term data that we need to inform these predictions. One piece is around continuing to capture the historical data, which is one role the federal government can play. Of the many hydrometric stations that were active in this watershed up to 1990, 44% have since been removed from service, so we're finding there is actually a decrease in how much we're measuring. I can't speak to how that compares with the meteorological services, but we know for a fact that there is a decrease of measuring in this watershed of those flow levels. That is one area where we would recommend seeing an improvement, and that could inform the strategy.

[Larissa Holman]

I briefly want to say that another role of the Canadian government in this effort could be to ensure that every Canadian region has the same access to information, not just provinces that have more weather stations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

We will now go to Ms. Collins.

Mr. Longfield, did you raise your hand?

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I'll wait until after Ms. Collins.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Okay.

Ms. Collins, you have six minutes.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of the witnesses for their testimony.

My first question is for Ms. Orlando and the climate lobby. Recently the Citizens' Climate Lobby published an article on the uninsurable world and really highlighted how the increasing severity of flooding, of droughts, of these kinds of extreme weather events has some pretty detrimental impacts when it comes to insurance, including insurance company bankruptcies; elevated consumer prices; increasing publicly funded compensation, meaning that the damages are being paid directly by taxpayers; and the withdrawal of insurance coverage. I'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about this and how we are at risk as regions become uninsurable.

[Cathy Orlando]

That's a great question.

Citizens' Climate Lobby volunteers gather expert information and condense it into documents that we call "laser talks". It was shocking to read the data that our volunteers had put together.

Here in Canada, there are over 1.5 million high-risk households that cannot obtain affordable flood insurance. There are also risks of people losing their insurance, because from year to year their insurance prices can go up. We are heading towards an uninsurable world, and we need to mitigate the climate crises as fast as possible.

One of our recommendations is on all of this modelling data. We're just wondering this: Wouldn't it be helpful to have a business-as-usual trajectory versus mitigating as fast as possible? We need data to guide what is happening, because we are heading towards an uninsurable world. The data are pretty dramatic.

There was a second laser talk for Ontario. It was on a climate risk report that was released quietly in the summer of 2023. Again, unless we mitigate this crisis, the agricultural impacts will be quite high. I won't get into numbers but encourage you to read these reports.

I want to thank you for starting this flood and drought national program. I once served as the co-chair of the Sudbury adaptation panel, and we need data to drive our decision-making.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to this and also sound the warning.

Thank you, Robert, for sounding the warning as well.

I really appreciated listening to you, Mr. Sandford.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

My next question is for Ottawa Riverkeeper.

You've talked a lot about the importance of data and data sharing. You looked at a couple of suggestions for this national strategy. You're focused on Ottawa, but I'm curious how you see more rural and remote regions. How will this kind of data support them and their watershed management?