Canada's climate is changing, and it's changing more rapidly than the global average. Historically, we could plan for floods by looking back and looking at history and records. We used to say there's a 100-year flood line, and that was based on history.
But with our climate changing, we need to, as best as possible, create scenarios about what the future may look like and plan for that, instead of just looking back. The fact that the portal is being produced, and that we are trying to democratize this information and make it accessible to Canadians, is good, but if it doesn't have the capability of being updated easily, and it doesn't have the capability for users to select climate-change scenarios in the mapping, then its utility is limited. It is more like what we've been doing in the past, in terms of looking back to plan for the future. There's nothing wrong with that in a relatively stable climate, but with a changing climate we need to factor in as much as possible, recognizing that there is a degree of uncertainty in future rainfall patterns and future flooding along rivers and lakes.
I would have expected that the portal, being an initiative undertaken at a time when Canada recognizes the need to adapt to climate, would have that capability.