Thank you, Mr. Chair and honourable members, for this opportunity.
Canadians are facing a climate urgency. Natural disasters are ever-increasing in frequency and intensity. Think of Hurricane William and Fort McMurray as recent examples. There are ever-increasing needs and costs to protect Canadians from these disasters. International commitments on climate are helping drive our low-carbon economy. It is an exciting time and a new way of doing business, but time is not on our side, and global warming waits for no one.
The Canadian Climate Forum is unique in Canada. We are the only national, independent, apolitical agency that addresses all climate issues across all sectors and jurisdictions. We've built upon our distinguished past as the foundation and today focus on the science-to-policy interface to drive best strategies and policies. Our network is deep. It's Canada's leading climate scientists and academics, as well as a wide range of others from sectors of industry, economy, health, sociology, NGOs, national centres of excellence, and so on.
Our approach is to break down silos, form strategic partnerships to enrich expertise and avoid wasteful duplication, and convene across sectors and issues. A recent example of how we operate is provided by our national and international symposium, which was just last week, entitled “Moving Towards Sustainable Energy”. Every sector of the climate spectrum was represented, and our world-class speakers included Minister Catherine McKenna, Minister Jim Carr, Elizabeth May, Chris Ragan, Dominic Barton, Paul Boothe, and Dr. Mark Jaccard.
We also had a blue ribbon panel of clean-tech CEOs, and this came as a request from Mr. Jim Balsillie. These clean-tech CEOs said very clearly to the room that policies are lacking for them to do their business in this country, to scale up, and to keep jobs here.
We've been listening carefully to bureaucrats for the last 10 months and personally have met with more than 70 since January. We hear the consistent message that they are under huge pressure and that they need help with developing climate policy for adaptation and mitigation. Mitigation is new to many, and integration, while it is embraced, is a cultural shift. It's taking time, and it's time that really there isn't much of.
Recently we completed a contract on emergency management with Public Safety Canada. We were asked to develop a national inventory and engagement strategy of stakeholders who are absent from the discussions under way for a national emergency management plan for disasters. Because of the forum's network and expertise we were able to produce a 43-page report in a matter of weeks, identify more than 200 stakeholders whose voices have not been heard to date, and design an engagement strategy that Public Safety can implement immediately, with a range of cost options.
We heard from senior bureaucrats that two other major areas that lack help and knowledge are in the north, particularly engagement on traditional knowledge issues, and first nations and major infrastructure challenges such as thawing permafrost, sea level rise, snow and ice loss, and disruption of traditional ways of life.
Lastly, another main theme that appeared across different ministries concerns data. There is a massive and major lack of standardized data and guidelines in this country, driving everything from flood mapping to snow load guidelines to projections for agriculture practices. How can Canada build back better or build new without the best evidence?
In the private sector—the second part of our request in our submission—there is in this country a major gap in the private sector's voice in public policy related to climate change. Every department we met with told us that they would value an opportunity to have regular dialogues with CEOs in this country. Nobody is doing it, and the forum would like to be the one. We have recommended a business round table for climate resiliency, similar to the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, which disappeared, but much broader and more integrated.
We also propose to house ARISE Canada, which is the UNISDR's disaster risk reduction international initiative.
ARISE Canada just launched in October in Toronto, but there is no secretariat. I want to make it clear that the funding we ask for is not to sustain the secretariat; it's to launch it and to get it going. We see that 12 to 24 months would be plenty of time to have private sector funding to have the round table continue. This is a win-win. We have Public Safety Canada and other ministries hosting the world regional platform for disaster risk reduction next March, so you could announce this as a government initiative, and it would be a voice for government to go to for industry input.
To close, there is an urgency for knowledge and climate advice. It's a whole-of-society approach that will involve every sector and multitudes of stakeholders, and the forum is here to serve this government.
Thank you.