Environment Committee on Feb. 26th, 2026

[Leslie Muñoz]

What I will add is that we're facing a housing crunch across Canada and obviously there are strong municipal interests in building housing quickly. It's a crisis across the country.

What we've consistently heard from our members is that having access to information about flood plains and all those pieces would be helpful, just to make sure that when we're building communities, we're building strong communities that are resilient to the environment and to the growing pressures we're facing with extreme weather.

I know that the federal government has committed to developing a portal, but there have been delays related to data. We continue to recommend that the portal move forward. Having information on floods, flood risks and all those pieces will make for sustainable, stronger and smart development.

We're supportive of those measures, recognizing that we do need to build more housing quickly across this country and that all orders of government need to work together towards that end.

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

I appreciate that.

I want to make sure that we avoid conflating the two different issues, right—

[Leslie Muñoz]

Yes.

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

—of future growth that's organic and building more homes for Canadians, with repositioning existing infrastructure. Existing infrastructure is going to need mitigation in order to save.... You've made the point quite well that a dollar spent now is worth many dollars to mitigate disaster.

That's better than insurance coming into play after the fact, but even more than that, I want to back up to building in the right place the first time and making sure that in urban interface communities there are appropriate firebreaks already.

I want to get an appreciation of this. Is there a change in municipal spending priorities and thoughts on spending the limited resources that you have in this thoughtful manner? As an example, Calgary is in a bit of a circumstance here right now, with some significant urban water infrastructure and a lack of funds. They have to figure something out, because this is a critical piece, but historically, priorities on spending maybe have contributed to this. Could you comment on that?

[Leslie Muñoz]

Definitely. I would say that just because of the nature of municipal services, municipal infrastructure, asset management and all those pieces, it's innately linked to housing. I would say that municipalities, by provincial laws and just generally as a good practice, have very expansive asset management practices, capital plans and all those pieces. I used to work for a municipality—the City of Guelph—and what I can tell you is that in the City of Guelph climate considerations are top of mind when the municipality is prioritizing capital investment.

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Can I ask for a quick comment on how the municipality protects against the pressure from developers—or itself—of developing in unsafe ways?

[Leslie Muñoz]

What I will say is that, as part of planning processes, those are considerations that are made. There are stormwater management plans. There are water and waste-water management plans.

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

Thank you.

Mrs. Miedema, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[Shannon Miedema, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Thank you very much to all the witnesses today.

I'm really excited about this final day of our study. This is a study that I brought forward, and I think that all the witnesses, on all of the days, including today, really show the rationale for having a study like this. We really do have gaps that we need to consider.

We're trying to understand the role of the federal government and what the federal framework should look like across all the different considerations of extreme weather impacts for Canadians. Yes, there is a lot on getting smarter as we build—where we build and how we build—and we're slowly but surely getting smarter on that. That's a multi-jurisdictional consideration. Not any one government has control over that, but then there's all of this existing infrastructure...these communities on the coasts.

It's really great to see you, Ms. Muñoz. I worked a lot with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities in my past life with the City of Halifax and was very focused on adaptation. I'm just wondering how the Federation of Canadian Municipalities facilitates co-operation among its members on the issue of uninsured and insured losses as they pertain to extreme weather.

[Leslie Muñoz]

I will speak to the benefit of the green municipal fund.

The green municipal fund is delivered in partnership with the federal government. Its intention is to support local communities with climate adaptation, with making progress on climate change. I'll point to some of the work we're doing through our green municipal fund. It's focused on capacity building.

I'll pass it over to Louise if she wants to share a bit about that. I can also answer if you would like.

[Louise Wallace Richmond]

Is the question related specifically to insurance?

[Leslie Muñoz]

The question is specific to insurance. We don't have an offering like that through the green municipal fund, but we do offer a lot of climate resilience studies and those types of pieces.

On the insurance piece, we've been very supportive and have called on the federal government to ensure that there is accessible insurance, especially for high-risk households. We've been supportive of efforts to advance that, and have worked with the Insurance Bureau of Canada and other climate partners to advocate for accessible insurance for all Canadians.

[Shannon Miedema, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Okay, great.

[Louise Wallace Richmond]

This could mean establishing a fund over four years to protect not just the areas most at risk of flooding but also the community members most at risk in those areas who couldn't possibly begin to afford flood insurance, if they could get it.

It would be shared with the private sector, but there would be a small public portion.

[Shannon Miedema, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

The reason I framed this study the way I did is because there had been a lot of work in the last few years with a consortium called Climate Proof Canada, with the insurers and with governments. They would come together once a year. I was plugged into that through my role at the City of Halifax.

I think we're still trying to understand who does what when it comes to the dollars and cents of a recovery, while also considering how we build resilience into our infrastructure today. What is the role of the insurance sector? What are the roles of the federal, provincial and territorial governments?

Yes, a lot of those funds that the federal government gives have to funnel through provinces and territories. It's at their discretion to determine where those monies go, which can be problematic for the municipalities themselves.

I'll turn to Mayor Payne. It's great to have you here. Thank you for your testimony.

Since you have this issue, have you or your staff at the town had conversations with staff or politicians from the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador on how to access dollars, whether they be federal or provincial dollars, to really talk about starting to secure that highway? Is that highway a provincial highway, a federal highway or a local highway?

[Blaine Payne]

Not really, though for money to apply for.... I've been talking to someone, and they said that transportation infrastructure is monitoring the area around that section of the highway. They're just monitoring it. Nothing has been done to protect it.

[Shannon Miedema, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

I think there are some opportunities, right?

Again, if you have a town of 300 people, you don't necessarily have that staff. It's really up to the province to be pulling its weight on securing what it needs to protect a big access way for a whole part of the province.

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

Thank you.

Mr. Bonin, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm still speaking to the people from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

You talked about various scenarios for reducing emissions and the importance of doing so. Just a few days ago, your president, Ms. Bligh, was here to talk, with Mr. Carney and others, about public transit funding, which was cut by $5 billion. You said that this led you to compete with the provinces and territories for funding that would normally be allocated to public transit.

Can you talk a bit about how you view the importance of that funding?

[Leslie Muñoz]

I'll speak to this quickly, and then turn it over to Louise.

What you're referring to is the $5-billion cut to the Canada public transit fund, CPTF, in budget 2025. We are currently advocating for the reversal of that cut. I appreciate that, of the three streams, public transit will be an eligible expense as part of the build communities strong fund. We are very concerned that the BCSF is not at the pace and scale necessary to truly meet the need across the country. The benefit of the Canada public transit fund is that it's dedicated. It's stand-alone. It's an investment in public transit that doesn't need to compete with other municipal priorities. The fact that it has been cut is a challenge for municipalities across the country.

You spoke a little bit about competing with provincial priorities. Under the provincial and territorial stream of the build communities strong fund, one of the conditions, in order to access the funding, is that provinces have to match the funding that the federal government is putting forward. There's also a requirement for development charge reductions in order to access the funding. The challenge with that is that, in many jurisdictions in Ontario and Quebec, development charges are actually used to fund public transit. It becomes a bit of a double whammy if there's a 16% cut to CPTF, and then at the same time, on the other side, development charge reductions likely lead to a reduction in funding available at the municipal level for public transit. It creates challenges for all municipalities.

Louise, I don't know if you want to add anything to that.

[Louise Wallace Richmond]

As a mid-sized community it's less top of mind for us, although of course I see public transit as a form of important infrastructure as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

Thank you.

Mrs. Anstey, the floor is yours for five minutes.

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

Thank you.

Mayor Payne, I wanted to ask you a couple of other questions. I take Ms. Miedema's point with respect to provincial resources. I think what's most appropriate in this case would be the disaster mitigation and adaptation fund because these are breakwaters that are in the ocean in order to protect the coastline, which is eroding away on the highway. I think we're specifically speaking about that.

She made a reference to staff. How many staff persons do you have at the town of Parson's Pond, Mayor Payne?

[Blaine Payne]

We have our town clerk manager. We have a part-time maintenance person. With four towns, we are combined as a region with one maintenance person who we share. Besides our employees, we just have us five volunteer councillors.

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

I think it's important to get on the record that access to these sorts of resources such as surveyors and engineers is extremely limited.

Have you seen erosion accelerate over the last number of years?