Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to all the witnesses for joining us today.
I represent northeast Calgary, Calgary Skyview. The city of Calgary has experienced some real major climate events, for example, the 2013 floods. We've seen two hailstorms. The last one in 2020 did up to $1.5 billion of damage in my northeast Calgary communities. There was flooding on Deerfoot Trail, on our roadways and in homes. There were 35,000 homes damaged and 35,000 vehicles.
I'll start with the Insurance Bureau.
I'm a former city councillor. We had asked the Conservative provincial government for support for our communities. In 2013, we saw a response. We saw support for the floods. We saw no support when our council recently asked the provincial government for support, exactly to the points you have made today on supporting communities by being able to bring resilient roofing forward so people can build back better and build more resilient homes and communities to reduce those insurance premiums. There was no support; nobody showed up. There were different approaches to different storms.
We have other issues as well when it comes to a broken insurance system. I wish there was an insurance company here to answer some of these questions.
We had a high volume of claims. We had an ill-prepared insurance industry to deal with those claims, particularly in newcomer communities.
Has the insurance industry learned from that past example, and have they improved their practices to ensure that folks who face these challenges are better served in language, potentially, and that there are on-the-ground supports to help them get through that process?