Environment Committee on Feb. 3rd, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

Good morning, everyone.

Today is meeting number 23 of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. This meeting is taking place in a hybrid format and is in public. For those attending in person, please follow the health and safety guidelines on the card found on your table to prevent audio or feedback incidents.

We have five study budgets to adopt, and I will leave five minutes at the end of the meeting for this.

The committee is resuming its study on protecting Canadian residents from extreme weather events.

This afternoon we are meeting with the following witnesses.

From the Canadian Real Estate Association, we have Janice Myers, chief executive officer, welcome; from the city of Grand Forks, we have Duncan Redfearn, chief administrative officer, by video conference, welcome; and from the town of Princeton, we have Mayor Spencer Coyne, by video conference, welcome.

Witnesses, you have five minutes to make your opening remarks.

We'll start with Ms. Myers.

[Janice Myers, Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Real Estate Association]

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. I'm Janice Myers, CEO of the Canadian Real Estate Association, which represents more than 160,000 realtors from coast to coast to coast, offering a unified voice for homeowners in every riding across this country.

For everyday Canadians, climate change isn't a percentage point or a bar graph. It is a devastating and increasingly common extreme weather event with real consequences. I'm appearing here not only in my professional capacity but also as someone who has lived experience.

From 2000 to 2014, our family lived in Kelowna, British Columbia. During that time, two major wildfires saw us welcome evacuees into our home. We experienced neighbourhood evacuation alerts on three occasions, when we packed up our most precious belongings and stayed on alert, ready to flee. We watched helplessly from across Okanagan Lake as a fire raged down the mountain towards a home we had recently purchased and were to move into later on that month.

We've seen hailstorms in Calgary leave scars visible from space, and hurricanes redraw Atlantic Canada's coastlines, reaching so deeply into Quebec that they are fundamentally expanding our national risk map. In the west and across the Prairies, wildfires are no longer just seasonal threats. They are market disruptions that delay transactions, spike premiums and leave homebuyers and sellers financially frozen.

These impacts reach beyond property lines with smoke so thick that it covers Manitoba to Montreal, creating unsafe farm conditions and pushing local urban air quality to the worst in the world. Nationally, for every dollar covered by private insurance, the taxpayer is on the hook for three more in disaster relief and infrastructure repair.

As trusted advisers, realtors provide a unique window into the real-time intersection of climate risk and housing affordability, helping to illustrate how national trends affect housing budgets. One of our members told us about a buyer on Vancouver Island who almost lost out when an astronomical insurance quote threatened to kill their deal. Along the eastern coast, homeowners are facing 30% increases to maintain simple, basic seismic coverage, and earthquake insurance is often a coastal strata's largest expense. Realtors report a rising number of homeowners in high-risk flood and wildfire zones facing unexpected challenges in obtaining affordable coverage, even if their specific property was never affected. We've heard that force majeure clauses are now common, triggering delays of up to 60 days during extreme weather events and causing a domino effect on multiple families due to costs they can neither predict nor control.

It's estimated that, by 2030, 750,000 new homes could be built in high-risk flood and fire zones, pricing this new class of climate-vulnerable Canadians out of their own communities.

Mr. Chair, I sit before you this afternoon because this committee recognizes that climate risk is as much about people as it is about property, directly impacting safety, health and stability for Canadians. As realtors, our members are people experts, offering insights into the impact on Canadians and advice on where federal leadership can help families get ahead.

Canada must launch a national flood insurance program to provide a safety net for those in high-risk areas being denied coverage. Governments must also consider extending such a program to high-risk wildfire areas given their increased cost and severity. However, reliable safety nets depend on accessible hazard mapping, ensuring accurate risk assessment and an understanding of national exposure.

Beyond insurance, we need policies that empower homeowners to protect themselves. Resilience can and should be a shared investment. By offering tax incentives for resilient new builds, or consumer rebates for safety upgrades to older homes like metal roofs or back-flow valves, the government can help ensure that today's homes don't become tomorrow's disaster recovery efforts.

At CREA, we believe in opening doors to thriving futures for all, and that begins with a home that is affordable, safe and durable. Realtors are committed to being part of the solution, which is why CREA launched an optional certified green designation last year, which equips our members with expertise to help homeowners navigate the practical benefits of climate mitigation and secure their property.

We know that every dollar invested in adaptation today can save up to 15 in future recovery costs, and we understand the risk. Now we need continued federal resolve to invest in building resilience.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

Thank you very much, Ms. Myers.

The floor is yours, Mr. Redfearn.

[Duncan Redfearn, Chief Administrative Officer, City of Grand Forks]

Hello. My name is Duncan Redfearn. I am the chief administrative officer for the City of Grand Forks. I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to speak today. Mayor Baker and council send their greetings.

I would like to use this time to briefly talk about our experience, give our recommendations to the committee and provide some statistical data.

In May 2018 the City of Grand Forks, B.C., along with rural communities adjacent to both the Kettle and Granby rivers, experienced an unprecedented one-in-200-year flood event. Due to a higher-than-normal spring snowpack, a rapid transition from a cool spring to high temperatures, and a large regional rain event, the city suffered catastrophic flooding. This combination of unfavourable conditions was not only a serious risk to life safety; it also compromised city infrastructure, inundated neighbourhoods and caused substantial damage to both commercial and industrial properties.

In 2019 the city was awarded a disaster mitigation and adaptation fund grant in the amount of roughly $50 million, comprised of $20 million federally, $30 million provincially and an additional city contribution of approximately $5 million. Shortly after receiving the funding, the city commenced a flood mitigation program that centred around managed retreat, which, oversimplified, included substantial flood modelling, the acquisition of land and improvements, the construction of flood protection infrastructure and the return of land to the river, or flood plain naturalization.

As of 2026, the city has spent $72 million. With this money, we have constructed 3,000 metres of flood protection infrastructure; purchased 90 properties, 70 of which had improvements, including houses; and returned 10 hectares back to the river. Overall, this money has been used to protect our major industrial partners and businesses, critical infrastructure and at-risk neighbourhoods from future events. Fundamentally, however, it has restored confidence in our community and provided for economic stability. Both the viability and the future of our community have been directly correlated to this program's success.

I'll move now to recommendations that are based on our experience. The most important is that annual funding and support be available for communities experiencing extreme weather events moving forward. We also recommend that, as part of this funding, the policy allows for funding to be front-loaded and eligible to be used for acquiring property; and that any acquisition of land incorporates an equitable compensation framework, such as pre-flood values, additional compensation, consideration of hardship and the cost for displaced homeowners to re-enter the same market. Where allocated for the acquisition of property, it can be used for both land and improvements, which was not the case for us. Flexibility in scope is integral, as are cost centres and grant-stacking over the duration of the program. Finally, we recommend that funding be available to support the development of community capacity also, which could include project management, financial management, land use and planning, and permitting.

I can provide some rough statistics to help provide additional context. Before the flood mitigation program, in a one-in-200-year event, around 800 people would require evacuation. After the program, that number has been reduced to approximately 250. We've protected $194 million in assessed value, comprised of 175 residential buildings along with 108 commercial, industrial and utility structures. Including 2018, Grand Forks has experienced four flooding events equal to or greater than a one-in-10-year flood.

In addition, the total program cost increased to $72 million over the seven-year program. In order to finish our program, the province provided an additional $12 million through grant-stacking. The city contributed another $4 million over and above the first $5 million. As a result of additional compensation and hardship formulas, the city did pay an additional $2.3 million, but we achieved 95% voluntary acquisition. To provide some perspective, the City of Grand Forks requisitions a little over $4 million annually. Typically, we manage a little over $12 million as our annual budget.

I could go on, but I'll stop here. I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

Thank you, Mr. Redfearn.

The floor is yours for five minutes, Mr. Coyne.

[Spencer Coyne, Mayor, Town of Princeton]

Thank you.

[Witness spoke in Nsyilxcn and provided the following text:]

way’ ̌ xast š xľ ̓xʕal̓t iskʷist Spencer Coyne.

[English]

Hello. I'm the mayor of Princeton, B.C. Thank you for having me here today to speak about extreme weather events, something our community and our valley are very intimately familiar with.

I want to start by saying that there's no point in pointing fingers. We've all inherited the situation, and we all have to be part of the solution.

We have heard that we need to stop allowing people to build in flood plains or in interface areas. This can't be our answer. It can be part of the solution, but not the answer. There are best practices that can be used to minimize the impact of the increasing frequency of extreme weather events, and local governments are working on them.

We are changing building practices and employing FireSmart principles. For example, the Princeton FireSmart team has delivered 634 wildfire hazard assessments for homes, has removed almost two million pounds of wildfire fuels in the community and has provided tens of thousands of dollars in rebates, helping community members reduce insurance premiums.

We have changed building practices to include a FireSmart development permit. In flood areas, we're requiring builders to construct to “get wet” while protecting critical systems and residential space, minimizing the impacts on people.

The 2021 atmospheric river event that put our community in the international spotlight had a direct economic impact on the local business community, resulting in over $13 million in losses, over half a million dollars in lost wages and an estimated $3.4 million in future losses. This was on top of the loss of clean drinking water for the community for three years and approximately $13 million in losses to the municipality in the form of infrastructure and operational capacity.

Local and regional governments across the country are working collectively to support one another in the face of the changing environment. Although we have support from the Province of B.C., we still lack national coordination. We need a national program to bring resources and funding to the table.

The sheer volume and intensity of extreme weather events are taxing local, regional, provincial and first nations systems. In British Columbia, we go from spring freshet to drought and from fire and heat to atmospheric river season like we used to go from winter to spring and from summer to fall. Changing weather systems are affecting forestry, tourism, agriculture, transportation and every other sector of the Canadian economy. We cannot continue to do this alone. It is bigger than our town, our regional district and our province. These are national issues that need an “all hands on deck” solution to minimize the ongoing negative impacts on all of us.

I do applaud the changes to the DFAA to build back better, but we still lack a dedicated funding model to help rebuild and to bring communities like Princeton and Merritt back on the same playing field as the rest of the nation when competing for funding like DMAF. The federal government can lead by having a dedicated fund outside of DFAA and DMAF to help communities get back on their feet.

We need an all-hazards guaranteed insurance program in Canada. Yes, only 10% of Canadians may be unable to get flood insurance, but that 10% is now being joined by our neighbours in the Thompson-Nicola region, who are now being denied fire insurance because of the high risk of wildfires. Will crop insurance be next? How many more will join that 10% as things get worse?

We need to look for natural solutions where possible, and we need a relocation program that includes insurance companies, that keeps neighbourhoods together and that ensures that Canadians do not lose their equity and retirement. As I said earlier, we inherited the reality we are in. We can look to the past, though, and we can look to the teachings of our elders and knowledge-keepers as well as western science and engineering for solutions.

I caution that, without local government at the table as a full partner, looking only to senior levels of government to try to legislate our way out of the situation will not work. At the local government level, we are doing hard work every day, and we are developing place-based solutions informed by experience, which help our communities remain together, heal from the trauma we have experienced and move forward.

The table needs to include more than just government, though. We need first nations, industry, business, non-profits and others who can provide valuable input as we move forward. We do not need to recreate the good work that's been done across the country; we just need to learn from it and adapt.

[Witness spoke in Nsyilxcn and provided the following text:]

way’ limləmt

[English]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

Thank you, Mr. Coyne.

I'll start with the Conservative Party.

The floor is yours, Ms. Anstey, for six minutes.

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

Thank you.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

To the representative from CREA, which I'm very familiar with, coming from a real estate background as a real estate broker myself, I'm really glad that you're here, because your members are people in the community who know the areas where they work and make a living.

This has been a priority of the government for quite some time—since 2017. I'm curious about how long they have they been engaged with you and in what capacity.

[Janice Myers]

I've been with the organization for two years, so my knowledge in that two years is limited. I believe this is the first time we've been asked to testify, and we really appreciate the invitation.

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

Okay. Excellent.

I know you're very involved with your members, who are brokers and agents. I would like to give you an opportunity, at a grassroots level, to tell us what you're hearing from your membership, if you could expand on that a bit.

[Janice Myers]

Thank you.

We celebrated our 40th anniversary of our political action committee days, when we have realtors from across the country meet with members of Parliament, mostly talking about the housing affordability crisis.

At the end of that committee meeting and the days together, we asked our committee what they were most concerned about and what kept them up at night. They said climate risk and the issues their clients are experiencing right now. They're having more difficulty finding insurance, and deals are being compromised or held up because there is no insurance. There is all sorts of anecdotal evidence that keeps them very concerned.

Not only are we in an affordability crisis; we are also in a climate crisis that is affecting people's ability to have safe, affordable and secure housing.

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

On that point, it's also important to note that without insurance, you can't get financing for properties. It's very closely tied to deals being put together.

Do you have statistical data on how many deals fall apart as a result of not being able to put insurance in place or the consumer realizing that the premiums are so high that they're not able to get affordable insurance?

[Janice Myers]

You're quite right. Most deals are subject to the ability to get financing and find insurance. We do not have national data on that, and I think it's something we will consider tracking for sure. Anecdotally, as I say, it is something that's been brought to the attention of the national association to get more involved in.

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

I want to shift gears for a second, because one of the other things they're attempting to achieve is a national mapping system. I understand the spirit of this, but the other side of it is that all agents have a duty to disclose whatever information they have on a property. Typically, what we encourage our agents to do is to approach municipalities to get that information.

I represent a part of the country that's quite rural. My concern with a national mapping system is accuracy and the disclosure requirement. You don't want incorrect information being passed on. I would like you to speak to that, as somebody who is in the industry and very familiar with both of those concepts.

[Janice Myers]

Due diligence is what a realtor absolutely needs to do on behalf of their clients. They're very aware and do a lot of research to make sure that they understand the environment their clients are purchasing in.

Part of the problem with data mapping is a lack of coordination and cross-country data. That's exactly why one of the solutions needed is the updated flood and risk mapping. A smart climate resilience strategy focuses on protecting existing homeowners while mitigating future risk.

That's where I'll leave it. You're quite right. We don't have enough accurate mapping, and it is changing all the time.

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

Would you agree that at the municipal level, for the people who are actually living in these communities, it's very important that this information comes from them? My concern is that there are risks once it goes into a national platform, and that some of this information might not be completely accurate in some of the smaller areas.

[Janice Myers]

Absolutely. I agree with that.

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

We had hurricane Fiona, which came through my riding, and a lot of people actually lost their homes completely. Could you speak to this from a national perspective? It put immense pressure on the market because people were displaced, and then they were looking for other properties because they couldn't live in their properties anymore.

Is this another pressure adding another layer of context? Could you speak to this?

[Janice Myers]

Yes, whenever there is a significant climate event, all of those things happen. There are people like us. We found ourselves concerned about whether we would even be able to buy the property that the fire was raging towards.

Basically, every single time there is a major fire or any sort of climate event, all of those things happen. You can't find homes. It affects the entire market, so, yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

Thank you.

Next, we have Mr. Fanjoy for six minutes.

[Bruce Fanjoy, Liberal, Carleton, ON]

Thank you, witnesses.

Mayor Coyne, I'd like to start with you. You painted a very challenging picture of what it's like dealing with extreme weather events. I remember the first time I heard the term atmospheric river, and I thought, “How can any community prepare itself to deal with water in such volumes?”

As you look back on the experiences of Princeton, what can you tell us about steps that can be taken moving forward to make the community and other communities more resilient?

[Spencer Coyne]

Diking to start with; that's our biggest challenge right now. What do we do with the river? We've manufactured a river that's channelized over the last century. As I said earlier in my statements, it's not our fault. We weren't here when it was happening.

The channelization has changed the way the river flows. We look at historical photographs and we see where the river used to sit. We have to look back to nature-based solutions. That's a big part of it. Flood plain mapping is a big one. We just spent $100,000 on flood plain mapping after spending half a million dollars on flood plain mapping. We just had another atmospheric river this past winter. The numbers that we have are probably not accurate anymore.

It really does come down to how we get the funds to be able to do things and still keep communities together. A big part of it is keeping communities together as we move forward.

[Bruce Fanjoy, Liberal, Carleton, ON]

You mentioned that one of the extreme weather events knocked the water supply out for over three years. Perhaps you could elaborate on that, because it would seem to me that fresh water is something that you need to come back right away.

[Spencer Coyne]

We have three main wells in our community that feed the entire community. Two of them were overtaken by the river and as a result, we had to run a boil water advisory. We were able to isolate part of the system, so that the third well could keep that part of the community in fresh water. That was a blessing, because we were able to set up a water filling station. Other than that, we had to rebuild the entire water infrastructure in a different spot, safe from future flooding. Right now, we're undergoing a $6-million project on our last remaining well to make sure it's also flood-proof.

Overall, we'll be close to $10 million by the time all is said and done on that.

[Bruce Fanjoy, Liberal, Carleton, ON]

Thank you.

Ms. Myers, what can developers do to build more resilient communities?