Evidence of meeting #38 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 information.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Department of Natural Resources
As you said, I am the assistant deputy minister for geoscience and earth monitoring. Pipelines are not within my area of responsibility. For any questions related to that, I would turn to the commissioner to provide some additional answers.
Bloc
The Vice-Chair Bloc Patrick Bonin
Nevertheless, you're at Natural Resources Canada. Your minister is the one talking about green oil and net-zero oil. Do you have an opinion on that?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Department of Natural Resources
For an opinion regarding what's happening from a Natural Resources Canada perspective, my views are very specific to the work that I do in the geoscience and earth-monitoring sector. While I'm happy to talk about flood mapping and hazards, or any work related to that, additional questions on those would be best responded to by the commissioner.
Bloc
The Vice-Chair Bloc Patrick Bonin
Okay.
Help me understand why resilience plans for critical assets have been pushed back to 2035. These are critical assets, after all. This is a $100‑billion undertaking. The year 2035 is a long time from now. Can the government explain why it's postponing this? We're already seeing the impacts. How can the government justify that?
The government is in a hurry to build pipelines, but it's not in a hurry to do basic risk assessments. Can anyone explain to me why it isn't as eager to do that as it is to build things like pipelines? What are the actual short-term impacts of delaying these resilience plans?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Department of Natural Resources
Thank you for the question.
I can speak to mapping and the work that was done by and assigned to the department. I can't speak to pipelines. As I said earlier, I think we can ask the commissioner if he has anything to say about that.
In terms of the mapping and the work that has been done to date, I can tell you that another 1,000 maps will be produced by the time the program ends in 2028. We're going to exceed the targets set out in the national strategy. I think the work that Natural Resources Canada has done in collaboration with the provinces and territories is worth mentioning. It shows how we can work with the provinces to achieve the program objectives.
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I missed the name of the company, if you said it earlier. What is the name of the company?
Director General, Policy and Outreach, Emergency Management Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
I haven't said the name of the company. We have procured the data from what we were referring to as the FIFRA data. This is what we've purchased. I haven't named the company.
Director General, Policy and Outreach, Emergency Management Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
Go ahead...?
Director General, Policy and Outreach, Emergency Management Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
I will provide you all of the details about the program, as you requested, via a written response.
Conservative
Director General, Policy and Outreach, Emergency Management Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
I don't know what the company is.
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
You mentioned that there was a $10-million budget. Was that all spent?
Director General, Policy and Outreach, Emergency Management Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
In total, it's $11.5 million over three years that we were provided to build the portal, and yes, it was all spent.
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
It was an additional $11.5 million on the nose, and you spent it all.
Director General, Policy and Outreach, Emergency Management Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
That was from the 2023 budget. Yes, it has all been spent.
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
To clarify, you and StatsCan make the website. You look at the data. You analyze. You make an assessment and give it a risk rating for future searching, based on a postal code or whatever your parameter is for how you're going to indicate where the specific location in this portal is that you're looking for, but you don't own the data of this unnamed company you've procured this from. You can't update or change that data with climate change modelling or localized information as it emerges.
Does that company have any obligation to update that data over time, or are they done with their part?
Director General, Policy and Outreach, Emergency Management Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
Let me say a few things and provide some background around the climate data that you're referring to.
The federally identified flood risk areas and the current flood ratings are based on present-day conditions and do not currently account for climate change.
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
When did you realize that? When did you become aware that it's only the current data and it's not forward-looking?
Director General, Policy and Outreach, Emergency Management Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
The climate science to support flood mapping on a Canada-wide scale is still emerging, and there is no scientific—
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
I appreciate that you can continue reading. I'm asking you a different question.
When did Public Safety Canada become aware that the data is one-time use and doesn't take into account anything changing in the future? When did you become aware?
Director General, Policy and Outreach, Emergency Management Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
Let me just finish the response so that I can tell you what—
Conservative