Transport Committee on June 1st, 2023

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

That's also in Brampton, with an issue with the same disparity.

I know that my time is running out. Is there a role for the federal government to intervene to make sure this doesn't happen when the provincial government has taken absolutely no action to reduce rates or cap rates, so that folks in my constituency and other parts of the country—like Brampton—who are paying way more aren't unfairly charged?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

We need a 15-second response, please.

Thank you.

[Craig Stewart]

The insurance industry is regulated from a provincial level when it comes to its insurance market. It is a provincial regulatory issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chahal.

Thank you, Mr. Stewart.

I'm realizing that my powers as chair are dwindling as the days and weeks go by.

Mr. Barsalou-Duval, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

During the witnesses' opening remarks and the exchanges that followed, many spoke of the importance of natural infrastructure. I liked this, because it's not a natural reflex for the average person. Yet natural infrastructure most likely plays a big role in mitigating climate change and the consequences it can have on our communities.

A few years ago, the Canadian government acquired the famous pipeline to be built through British Columbia. This decision was highly controversial because we know that oil consumption increases greenhouse gases, which in turn significantly increase climate change. At the time, the federal government promised to plant 2 billion trees. I did a quick calculation earlier. For example, if you divide 2 billion trees by 338 ridings, that would be about 6 million trees per riding, which is a lot of trees.

Ms. Martin and Mr. Chalifoux, in Norfolk or Saint-Antoine-sur-Richelieu, could such a policy, already announced, of massive tree planting along waterways benefit riverside communities like yours? For example, if there were a willingness to bring these trees to your communities, you could use them effectively.

I'd like Ms. Martin to answer first.

[Amy Martin]

Thank you for the question.

I love trees. Norfolk County loves trees. We'd take the trees, but we have 25% tree coverage already, and we struggle to preserve what we have due to high development booms, maintenance requirements and resources to plant the trees, water the trees and check on the trees. I'd never say no to trees. We'd find a spot to put them, but I think it's such a bigger issue. I'd rather have money for water, but thank you.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Chalifoux, do you have anything to add?

[Jonathan Chalifoux]

We're taking all the measures we can, but it's not just a question of having trees: we also need to redevelop the riparian buffer strips in such a way as to allow greater resilience during floods. Trees are part and parcel of ecological landscaping, which would bring significant benefits. It's not just the river; all agricultural waterways need to be redeveloped too.

We have the space, but not the financial means to carry out projects. This program would involve the entire revitalization of riparian strips, whether it's the Richelieu River or all the agricultural watercourses that create a very rapid movement of water. The current is faster than it used to be.

Of course, if measures are adopted to control the volume of water flowing into the river, this will benefit everyone.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chalifoux.

Thank you, Mr. Barsalou-Duval.

Next we have Ms. Zarrillo.

Ms. Zarrillo, the floor is yours for two and a half minutes.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you so much.

I want to go back to Chief Michell, please, to talk a little bit about how an ounce of prevention equals a pound of cure.

Certainly, it's a very unfortunate situation in Lytton, and I know you saw that first-hand. As we think about modernizing and about more resilient infrastructure, I wonder if you could share with us around utilities and just your personal first-hand experiences of what we need to do better in Canada in regard to infrastructure.

[Chief Patrick Michell]

Energy production is critically important, because we need to power our infrastructure. I've been advocating for smaller-scale diversification of renewable energy throughout British Columbia and Canada so that when our large grids go down, we don't have to go without. Our water systems need energy. Our waste-water systems, our food production and our homes need energy. It's critical, then, that through this partnership of five governments—indigenous, municipal, regional, provincial and federal—we pool our resources. Those resources are people, time, technology and money. It also means we need information.

From a purely energy perspective, we do need resilient, sustainable and affordable energy.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you so much.

I'll go to the Insurance Bureau of Canada for my last question. Again, it just relates to utilities. I know that in my riding of Coquitlam we have a lot of greenfield. The development community does not want to invest in underground electricity. This is an issue.

Do you have any thoughts around how we have more resilient utilities that lower the risk? I'm talking about homeowners and residential.

[Chris Rol]

There are some things that can be done on the level of infrastructure, and not just power infrastructure. I think we need to think about resiliency not just for existing infrastructure but also in planning to make future infrastructure resilient. We have a problem with our existing infrastructure when it comes to remediation, but we need to plan better. We need to plan with a view to the future, not just looking at past climate and past challenges on the weather side but also looking to the future and building almost a physical infrastructure life-cycle assessment. What job are we asking that infrastructure to do over the next 20, 30 or 40 years? Make sure we're planning to build something that's fit for purpose.

I think there are standards and there are things that are being done by standard development organizations to develop best practices. There's a best practice document for flood-resilient new communities and flood-resilient existing communities. Those are the sorts of things communities should think about.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much.

Next we will go to Mr. Albas.

Mr. Albas, the floor is yours for five minutes, sir.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all our witnesses for being here today.

Actually, I'm going to pick up on that last point about municipalities being able to so-call build back better. I've seen in places like Princeton...and particularly Merritt. In Merritt, for example, the bridge has not been restored yet because they're not being allowed to build back better. They're being told that they have to utilize the same standard, even though it's been proven that the Coldwater River has the capacity to sweep through and wipe away the bridge, as it did before, if they bring back what they had before.

Is this something that the insurance bureau is seeing more and more? Does it need to be tackled by provincial governments?

[Craig Stewart]

The answer is yes.

Building for future conditions, not existing conditions, is essential at this point. The insurance industry is looking at how, essentially, through our policies, we can encourage building back better to a higher standard than what was there before. It's essentially a dialogue between provinces and levels of government about how to come up with the funding to make that happen.

Somebody mentioned the Sendai framework earlier. It's sort of the main tenet internationally, and it's an approach that we support.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

I had a conversation with Fire Chief Brolund of the West Kelowna fire department, a very able person with a great team there. They have hired a FireSmart person to help with interface issues, and WFN, Westbank First Nation, has done a lot as well. Logan Lake barely escaped from a devastating fire in 2021, and Premier Horgan, at the time, said that it was because they made those investments in FireSmart B.C.

One of the things that I have, though, is that I see, in my province, continued issues with forest fires. While I do recognize that climate change is part of the issue, the other question is conservation practices. Do you have concerns, as the Insurance Bureau of Canada, that provincial governments are not properly funding those kinds of things? In what kinds of ways can we look to help prevent forest fires? Municipalities sure can do some things, but they can't do everything.

[Craig Stewart]

There is a question about—and it was brought up before—forest management practices. There have been some studies done around what could be the role of wetlands around municipalities, encouraging wetland rehabilitation, etc., where humidity might be able to play a role. There is, obviously, the active conversation around firebreaks around municipalities.

However, you need a comprehensive approach. The work on wildland-urban interface—which, again, we support—in B.C. is another....

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Again, I'd like to get to those practices because we had approximately 300 firefighters from British Columbia and Alaska when many of the fires started in 2021, and they were there to assist the Americans. There are a lot of decisions that happen where.... We didn't have the manpower in British Columbia to be able to effectively fight those fires.

Could you give us some more concrete examples of what forest management practices need to change?

[Craig Stewart]

I'll have to get back to you with a report. I don't have specifics on it.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

If you could just table that with the committee clerk, that would be helpful—just so that we have that.

Lastly, I'll just touch on flooding and whatnot.

One of the things I've heard about your industry is that it requires extensive flood mapping and other risk assessments—again, on whether a community is FireSmart, etc.—and that those will have a profound impact on rates.

Is there enough mapping going on in places like British Columbia and, in fact, across the provinces to allow your industry to function so that it can make sure that, for people who are in unsafe areas, governments and those ratepayers will through price mechanisms, rather than governments having to put oodles of money.... I think that's the first-level thing we should be asking provinces.

[Craig Stewart]

We've come a long way.

With regard to flood mapping, seven years ago the flood maps for this country were terrible. We relied on what we received from Natural Resources Canada as an input. However, now there are global private-sector firms that model Canada for flooding, and their models have come a long way in the last seven years.

Public Safety Canada has taken pretty well all of the existing models and created a comprehensive—probably it's the best in class—flood model for the country, and that's what's going to be used for the actuarial analysis for the national flood insurance program.

I would say that, whereas flood mapping was more of an issue several years ago, the private sector innovation in the area, combined with the recent investments that Natural Resources Canada is using to improve the base mapping, have meant that we're in much better shape than we used to be. However, those maps do not predict future conditions. They are all about what the risk is now, and we have a ways to go, not just in Canada but everywhere around the world, on how we improve the maps to address that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Stewart.

Thank you, Mr. Albas.

Finally for today, we'll go to Mr. Kelloway.

Mr. Kelloway, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thank you, and I'll be sharing most of my time with MP Chahal.

I wanted to make an observation that MP O'Connell mentioned today, and everyone was agreeing obviously with the fact that we can all come to a common consensus on climate change, the climate crisis.

Back home, MP Lewis mentioned he was a firefighter, and it prompted me to say that all levels of government back home are working hand in glove on what is a “once in a lifetime” event, we were told. In eight months, we have had two “once in a lifetime” events—a massive hurricane in Cape Breton and a massive fire event that is tearing the lives down of people in my community.

The work we do here and the work we do as a committee here is absolutely important—and I'm only here for one day. In the work you do, whether you're the Insurance Bureau or whether you're a municipality, the time for pointing fingers is over. The time for taking data and turning it into decisions is here.

I wanted to make that comment and pass my time over to MP Chahal.

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, MP Kelloway, for those remarks.

Mr. Stewart, I want to go back to you, because you ended off by saying that it's provincial jurisdiction. Too many people in my northeast Calgary constituency have been refused insurance or are paying exorbitant costs. It's provincial jurisdiction. This is unfair for my constituents in northeast Calgary, and folks across the country, who face similar challenges wherever they are.

Our provincial Conservative government has not protected northeast Calgarians and has not supported us when we went through this crisis. It was left to city council. It was left to communities to do this.

You said earlier that national flood insurance is a “unifier”. I believe you made that remark. Is there a role for our federal government to intervene in provincial jurisdiction when it comes to insurance?