Thank you.
I would like to thank all the committee members for inviting me.
Madam Chair, I would like to start by saying that extreme weather events are now part of everyday life in many regions. Every year, municipalities across the country see their infrastructure weakened, their roads submerged, their soil dried out and their homes flooded.
I'm thinking in particular of my own constituency of Terrebonne, where I've seen first‑hand the very real effects of heavy rains. For us, sudden rainfall events, unexpected flooding and erosion risks aren't simply meteorological phenomena. They're part of our daily lives. When the Mascouche River or the Mille Îles River threatens to overflow, it's about more than just hydrological data. It's also about families who fear losing their homes, business owners who risk losing everything and municipal infrastructure being put to the test.
This is exactly why I believe that Bill C‑241 is essential. It proposes to establish a national strategy for flood and drought forecasting based on science, coordination and transparency. However, for this strategy to really work, it must be based on high‑quality and consistent data. Today, each province, territory and indigenous government collects its own hydrological information using different instruments, observation networks that vary from region to region and analytical methods that aren't always compatible. These differences create silos that limit the collective ability of these players to effectively anticipate floods and droughts.
To move forward together, we need to narrow these gaps and strengthen the interoperability of the structures in place. Bill C‑241 doesn't seek to centralize work or remove powers. Instead, it seeks to bring together knowledge and tools around a shared objective. This objective is to strengthen Canada's capacity to anticipate and prevent hydrological disasters.
Canada can't rely on the United States and it needs to ensure data sovereignty. If Canada wants full control over its prevention capabilities, it must have data. Today, our country still relies on data supplied by foreign organizations, in particular the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. While useful, this data has sometimes proven to be inaccurate or ill‑suited to Canada's realities.
Bill C‑241 aims precisely to correct that dependence by strengthening Canada's autonomy and ensuring that its decisions are based on data produced here, by Canadians. The data must be produced to meet Canada's needs. The bill proposes a co‑operative model where information collected by different jurisdictions can be interconnected and analyzed jointly. That way, Canada can offer all municipalities, from coast to coast to coast, the means to respond faster, to plan more intelligently and to protect their residents.
The costs of doing nothing are already enormous. In 2024 alone, insured losses related to climate events in Canada reached $8.5 billion. After storm Debby, the cost of insured damage in Quebec was $2.7 billion. Millions of people had to be temporarily relocated. Terrebonne wasn't spared. Road closures, pressure on infrastructure and repeated emergency responses put a strain on the constituency's finances.
Bill C‑241 provides a national framework to help better plan infrastructure, improve access to data, coordinate responses and, ultimately, save lives.
In conclusion, I would say that Bill C‑241 amounts to much more than a technical framework. It's a commitment to the safety of Canadians, an investment in the collective resilience of Canadians and a concrete step for communities. We need to choose prevention over reaction, coordination over isolation and resilience over vulnerability. So much more than data and property damage are at stake. At stake are faces, names and addresses and members of Canada's communities.
I invite my colleagues to support this bill and to work together on building a Canada that's better prepared for climate challenges.