Evidence of meeting #20 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was homes.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Parkland, AB
That's interesting. The government set itself a deadline of 25 years to protect all of the communities that were at risk of flood, so that there wouldn't be a need for the flood insurance program.
Founder and Executive Director, Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction
That's correct.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Parkland, AB
One reason I heard was that it wanted to give people 25 years to financially plan for a future where they wouldn't have subsidized flood insurance, so they could possibly sell their property and move to a safer area or they could have 25 years to invest in mitigation.
Is that another reason [Inaudible—Editor]?
Founder and Executive Director, Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction
I fully agree. That's absolutely correct.
To take the risk down to an acceptable level whereby in the next 25 years, we could have enough flood protection so that most homes would not experience extraordinary flood risk would be a good thing. However, there's still risk. You can have these very extreme events.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Parkland, AB
I have one minute left.
Can you tell us if the DFAA program is successful? If not, how is it failing?
Director of Partnerships, Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction
The DFAA is very proactive in the sense that it says fairly clearly that we will not pay again if they choose to rebuild in a high-risk area without the appropriate mitigation measures. This is a very strong step in the right direction, in that it supports the understanding of risk and the risk mapping and mitigation planning to get to a place where we—
Founder and Executive Director, Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction
The changes made this year in the DFAA were outstanding.
Founder and Executive Director, Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction
The changes were to focus on risk reduction and on a future where we are truly trying to have more focus on reducing risk in addition to paying for losses.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Angelo Iacono
Thank you very much.
Mr. St‑Pierre, you may go ahead for six minutes.
Liberal
Eric St-Pierre Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
Thank you.
Over the past four decades, the number of catastrophic events has skyrocketed. Canada went from around 38 catastrophic events from 1985 to 1994 to double that, at about 78, between 2005 and 2014. Given the increased rise of CO2 and climate pollution, we have now doubled those catastrophic events in Canada in the last decade to about 133, and 44 of those were water-related. Canadians are faced with these events every day, and the most vulnerable people in our society have to bear the costs.
I've seen these impacts myself, in my own riding. This past summer, in Anjou, basements were flooded. There was a flash flood. I think Mr. Feltmate mentioned that the average cost of a flooded basement was $54,000. Given the frequency of these flooding events, a lot of homeowners are unable to insure their basements. It adds to the housing crisis that some of my constituents are feeling in Anjou. We're seeing that the annual cost of flooding is projected to hit $1.8 billion next year.
I have a question for Mrs. Penwarden. Would you agree that with the rise of climate change, Canadians are paying a greater price to adapt to catastrophic events?
Managing Director, Personal Lines, Aviva Canada
You've laid out the statistics yourself, which say that more and more extreme weather and more frequent extreme events, as you've described, are costing the economy, individual constituents, consumers and Canadians more each year in both insured costs and personal costs. It takes time to recover, and it takes time to rebuild, and whether they can afford insurance or not will obviously affect the impacts.
It certainly is an escalating issue, and you can see it in some of the graphs my colleagues have presented to you today.
Liberal
Eric St-Pierre Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
How would an insurer like Aviva pass on those costs to one of its clients? Would you anticipate the cost of premiums being increased in the future?
Managing Director, Personal Lines, Aviva Canada
Canadians are subject to many impacts of climate and extreme weather across a number of different vectors, including insurance. Anything we can do now, as I've said in my call to action, to start to mitigate some of those impacts by taking some of the actions we've discussed will help change the impacts in the future.
We have an opportunity, and I welcome the discussion we're having today, to change that trajectory and that curve.
Liberal
Eric St-Pierre Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
That's great.
Mr. Feltmate, the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation recently produced a report, called “Managing Rising Risks: Climate-Resilient Shorelines for Canada”. The report talks about Canadian shorelines facing risks from climate change. My colleague from Halifax has probably seen some of those impacts herself.
Can you provide a copy of this report to this committee? In less than a minute, can you explain why nature-based or engineered solutions are required to protect our shorelines?
Head, Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation, University of Waterloo
Can we share a copy? The answer is yes.
Historically, in reference to protecting shorelines, actions have turned immediately to built infrastructure like large cement revetments that would hold back the water, which is good. However, sometimes that can end up just passing the problem further down the shore, in that you solve a problem in one area, but it can cause a change in the flow dynamics along the shoreline such that solving your problem can exacerbate somebody else's. We found that if we look at using natural infrastructure, grasses, shrubs and sedges along shoreline areas, working in combination with built infrastructure, the two working hand in glove take risk out of the system that can't be realized using one or the other on its own.
Engineers historically have leaned towards the big, mega infrastructure projects, but sometimes we've found now that the natural infrastructure working hand in glove with built infrastructure mitigates shoreline flood risk. By the way, the big challenge is that sea level right now is rising six millimetres per year, which is a lot. That's going to change the shorelines around the world. We're going to have to deal with the consequences.
Liberal
Eric St-Pierre Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
Thanks for that.
A few years ago, you and your colleague, I believe it was Kathryn Bakos, produced a report called “Transitioning from Rhetoric to Action: Integrating Physical Climate Change and Extreme Weather Risk into Institutional Investing”. I'm curious about whether you could provide a copy of that report to the ENVI committee. The report speaks to practical means of factoring climate change and extreme weather risk into institutional investing—what you call climate risk matrices, or CRM. We know that the TCFD, the task force on climate-related financial disclosures, and the ISSB have frequently called out for the need to better adapt climate risks to institutional and investment decisions.
How and why should investors incorporate physical climate risk into portfolio management? I'm thinking about commercial real estate portfolios, banking, or wind electricity generation.
Head, Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation, University of Waterloo
Right now, when they think about climate change, institutional investors—the pension funds—focus almost exclusively on transition risk, the cost on carbon and what it means to the companies they invest in. That's fine to do. What they've virtually completely and totally ignored are the impacts of flood, fire, hail, wind and snow load, the physical climate risk impacting the operations of the companies they invest in. Now it's being brought to their attention that they have to consider mitigation and adaptation simultaneously.
Liberal
Patrick Bonin Bloc Repentigny, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Penwarden, you talked about Canada's $2‑billion national adaptation strategy. Considering that Toronto alone needs $26 billion in improvements, how much do you think all of Canada's adaptation needs amount to?
Managing Director, Personal Lines, Aviva Canada
I don't have exact figures, but if Toronto needs $26 billion, I think you can start to imagine the impacts and adaptation gaps that we have in terms of investing.
What I will say is that in terms of the current investment portfolio objectives, there is a $6-billion fund that has been put aside in the government's current budget to engage and invest in projects in communities that can make a difference in terms of resilience and adaptation. It's not sufficient, but I would say that at least it's a step in the right direction. What we would do is welcome, obviously, more investment at a higher level across the country to support adaptation.
Bloc
Patrick Bonin Bloc Repentigny, QC
I see.
The $6‑billion fund you're referring to is the Canada community-building fund, is it not? As I understand it, the fund is by no means meant solely for adaptation projects. It also applies to public transit, housing and other things. Does it not?
Managing Director, Personal Lines, Aviva Canada
Yes, there is a build communities strong fund, which is $51 billion over 10 years, but there is a $6-billion tranche of that to support regionally significant projects, including climate adaptation. There is a subset within that overall plan at the moment. It's not to say that it is everything we need, but it is a good step in the right direction.
Bloc
Patrick Bonin Bloc Repentigny, QC
All right.
How many years does that $6 billion cover, and is it specifically for adaptation? How much funding should be earmarked for adaptation? In terms of the needs for all of Canada or for certain provinces, can you give us any figures? I imagine they exist.
Managing Director, Personal Lines, Aviva Canada
I'm not an expert in calculating the adaptation costs needed for the entire country, so I would not be the right person to answer that question. All I can do is point to what we have with the $6 billion that's being earmarked at the moment and say this is good progress, but we would obviously welcome more investment by the federal government in adaptation to accelerate the response to what we see.