Question Period Note: Climate Change and Emergency Preparedness

N.A.

• Canada’s North is warming at 3 times the global average, increasing risks to communities like wildfires, flooding, and permafrost thaw.

• Investing in the adaptive and emergency preparedness capacity of local and Indigenous leaders helps build strong communities, resilient economies, and ensures the safety of all Canadians..

• These investments also create a predictable investment environment for business, and help to mitigate financial risks associated with climate change.

• Made-in-the-North climate solutions ensure that the communities who are on the front line of climate change can lead on solutions.

• Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs is responsible for key federal adaptation programs that serve Indigenous and Northern communities throughout Canada. Since 2016, CIRNAC funding has supported hundreds of projects in northern and Indigenous communities for initiatives such as monitoring pattern shifts in flora and fauna, assessing the impacts of coastal erosion, permafrost thaw and ice melt, and undertaking emergency preparedness activities like FireSmarting and flood-mapping. These programs include:
o Climate Change Preparedness in the North
o Indigenous Community-based Climate Monitoring
o First Nations Adapt
o Engaging Indigenous Peoples in Climate Policy

• The department also works in close collaboration with other federal actors to support key Northern and Indigenous adaptation and preparedness priorities, including the co-development of measures to uplift Indigenous climate leadership and through the strengthening of Northern emergency management.

If pressed for examples

• Throughout Canada, investments made by Crown – Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada’s (CIRNAC) adaptation and preparedness programs have resulted in:

o 169 First Nations-led flood-mapping projects resulting in 331 floodplain maps, including in the Fraser and Lake Winnipeg Basins.

o 372 community risk and vulnerability assessments, that help identify community adaptation measures and act on them.

o 147 community-led weather stations and 141 snow and ice monitoring programs that are helping to ensure safe travel on the land.