Question Period Note: BC Flooding and US Investments in Flood Mitigation

Recent news articles have highlighted how lack on investments in flood prevention infrastructure in the United States have exacerbated flooding in British Columbia.

• Our thoughts are with the families of those who have lost loved ones and all those affected by the floods, landslides, and extreme weather conditions in British Columbia.

• Emergencies are managed first at the local level, and we are committed to working with the Province of British Columbia and people impacted by these events. The Government of Canada will be there for them during the rebuild.

• The Government of Canada will continue to work with the United States as we face the unprecedented challenges of climate change. This issue highlights the need for our countries to work together to build resilience and ensure similar events do not reoccur in the future.

• The Government of Canada also supports all-hazards risk management with the National Strategy and Action Plan for Critical Infrastructure, and is helping communities adapt to the changing climate through the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund.

• These large scale disasters highlight the needs to integrate climate resilience into building and infrastructure design data, guidelines, standards and codes to ensure more resilient communicates for all Canadians.

In the event of a large-scale natural disaster, the Government of Canada provides financial assistance to provincial and territorial governments through the Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements (DFAA), administered by Public Safety Canada. When response and recovery costs exceed what individual provinces or territories could reasonably be expected to bear on their own, the DFAA provides the Government of Canada with a fair and equitable means of assisting provincial and territorial governments.

The International Joint Commission is an independent bi-national organization established by the United States and Canada under the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909. The purpose of the Commission is to help prevent and resolve disputes about the use and quality of boundary waters and to advise Canada and the United States on questions related to water resources. Upon request, the IJC investigates specific issues and provides non-binding recommendations.

Since the inception of the program in 1970, the Government of Canada has committed $8 billion in post-disaster assistance to help provinces and territories with the costs of response and of returning public infrastructure and personal property to pre-disaster condition. The mitigation enhancements provision of the program provides up to an additional 15 percent of funding on top of eligible infrastructure reconstruction costs to build back better.

Canada’s National Strategy and Action Plan for Critical Infrastructure sets out an all-hazards risk management approach to strengthening the resilience of Canada’s critical infrastructure. This approach takes into account natural, accidental, and intentional threats that could affect Canada’s vital assets and systems.

The Government continuously works to enhance critical infrastructure resilience by identifying threats and hazards, sharing information on these findings with stakeholders, and working with industry partners to prepare for disruptions and incidents to better protect Canada and Canadians.

Collectively with the critical infrastructure community, considerable progress has been made since the release of the National Strategy, having focused on developing partnership and information-sharing mechanisms, exercises, and resilience and impact assessment programs.

In 2018, the Government of Canada launched the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund (DMAF), committing $2 billion over 10 years to invest in structural and natural infrastructure projects to increase the resilience of communities that are impacted by natural disasters triggered by climate change.

Budget 2021 announced an additional $1.375 billion in federal funding over 12 years to renew the DMAF. Of this amount, a minimum of $138 million is allocated to Indigenous Recipients. Starting in 2021, the DMAF funding will have two streams, with $670 million allocated to the small-scale project stream (projects with total eligible costs between $1 million and $20 million) and the remaining funding allocated to the large-scale project stream (projects with total eligible costs of $20 million and above).

Infrastructure Canada is also actively supporting the acceleration in the integration of resilience considerations into how infrastructure is designed and built across Canada (through updated codes and standards). For example, Infrastructure Canada has invested $42.5 million in the Climate Resilient Buildings and Core Public Infrastructure (CRBCPI) Initiative over five years (2016-2021) to undertake world-leading work in collaboration with the National Research Council of Canada to integrate climate resilience into building and infrastructure design data, guidelines, standards and codes.

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