Question Period Note: Mitigating Disaster Risks

Reducing disaster risk through pro-active investments in prevention/mitigation

• Climate-change driven hazards such as floods and wildfires represent a mounting threat to the safety of Canadians and the economic viability of Canadian businesses and communities.

• The Government of Canada is investing over $3.8 billion through the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund to help protect Canadians from natural hazards.

• Through Budget 2022, the Government of Canada committed to investing over $500 million to provide support to provinces, territories, and Indigenous communities in wildfire management.

• The Government is taking steps to ensure that Canadians are better protected and better able to recover from flood events, including through key Budget 2023 investments of $95.1 million to develop a flood risk communication portal; improve flood insurance coverage; and identify high-risk flood areas.
• The federal Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements (DFAA) will continue to remain available to Provinces and Territories, and provide support where insurance is not readily available.
• The Government of Canada is also committed to implementing a modernized DFAA program which would incentivize mitigation efforts, and ensure that there is sustainable source of support for provinces and territories in the face of rising disaster risks.

Climate-change driven hazards are increasing in both frequency and costs, and are a mounting threat to the safety and economic viability of Canadian businesses and communities. In order to help control escalating disaster costs, Canada is in the process of shifting its approach to managing disasters risks. This involves moving from a reactive government-focused model to a proactive whole-of-society framework with a focus on disaster risk reduction, prevention and mitigation.

Mitigation refers to proactive steps taken to eliminate, or reduce, the risks of disasters in order to protect lives, property, the environment, and reduce economic disruption; these activities are the most effective means of reducing disaster impacts and costs. International studies report benefit-cost ratios for mitigation ranging from $3:1 (Australia) to $10:1 (World Bank). Mitigation includes structural measures (e.g. construction of floodways and dykes) and non-structural measures (e.g. building codes, land-use planning, and insurance incentives).

Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund (DMAF)
The Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund (DMAF) is a national, merit-based contribution funding program that invests in structural and natural public infrastructure projects that increase the resilience of communities at risk of being impacted by natural disasters. The program supports infrastructure projects to help communities better prepare for and withstand natural disasters and climate change impacts. New construction and the modification or reinforcement of public infrastructure are eligible investments under DMAF. The total funding envelope has increased from $2B in 2017 to over $3.8B with new funds committed in 2021, and a recent top-up through the Government of Canada Adaptation Action Plan, released alongside Canada's first National Adaptation Strategy. In January 2023, Infrastructure Canada launched a new DMAF intake for disaster mitigation and adaptation projects. More than $1 billion in federal funding is currently available for disaster mitigation projects to help communities increase resiliency in the face of a changing climate and other natural environmental risk events. This funding is being delivered through one project stream, with a minimum threshold of $1 million and above in total eligible costs.
Disaster Financial Assistance Program
Disaster Financial Assistance
The Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements provide federal cost sharing to provinces and territories for uninsurable costs of large-scale disasters caused by natural hazards, including for activities such as evacuations, law enforcement, and rebuilding damaged infrastructure.
While the Government of Canada completes its work on creating a low-cost national flood insurance program, the costs of residential flooding in high-risk areas will continue to be eligible under the federal Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements program. Provinces and territories design and deliver financial assistance in their jurisdictions and set the specific terms for eligible claims.
Once flood insurance is available and affordable to Canadians, flood-related damages to residential properties will no longer be eligible for federal cost sharing under the Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements; however, cost sharing for a wide range of other types of government support such as evacuations, emergency response, infrastructure repairs, cleanup, restoration of transportation routes, psychosocial assistance and other supports for people will remain eligible. The decision on whether to continue to deliver disaster financial assistance for insurable flood damages within their respective jurisdictions will lie with the provinces and territories.
On April 17, 2023, the Government of Canada published the advisory panel’s final report Building Forward Together: Toward a more resilient Canada, which provides recommendations on how to improve the effectiveness and long-term viability of the DFAA. The recommendations will help inform Canada’s renewed approach to disaster financial assistance to ensure it remains a sustainable source of support for provinces and territories.
A modernized DFAA is expected to be announced in spring 2024, building on significant work with Provinces and Territories over the course of the past few years. The modernized program is expected to launch in April 2025.
Wildfires Mitigation Investments
In 2022 the Government proposed additional action to counter the growing threat of wildfires in Canada, including by providing support to provinces, territories, and Indigenous communities for wildfire mitigation, response, and monitoring. Initiative included, amongst others, $269 million to help provinces and territories procure firefighting equipment such as vehicles and aircrafts; $39.2 million to support the purchase of firefighting equipment by First Nations communities; $37.9 million to train 1,000 additional firefighters and incorporate Indigenous traditional knowledge in fire management; and, $169.9 million to deliver and operate a new wildfire monitoring satellite system.

Emergency Management Strategy for Canada
Federal, Provincial and Territorial (FPT) Ministers Responsible for Emergency Management, who in 2019 approved Canada’s first-ever FPT Emergency Management Strategy for Canada (EM Strategy), which establishes FPT priorities to strengthen the resilience of Canadian society by 2030. The EM Strategy seeks to guide FPT governments and their respective Emergency Management (EM) partners in carrying out priorities aimed at strengthening Canada’s ability to assess risks and to prevent/mitigate, prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters. The EM Strategy seeks to align the efforts of all Canadians, as well as to strengthen overall resilience through five priority areas of activity. These priority areas of activity were approved by FPT Ministers responsible for EM in May 2017:
1. Enhance whole-of-society collaboration and governance to strengthen resilience;
2. Improve understanding of disaster risks in all sectors of society;
3. Increase focus on whole-of-society disaster prevention and mitigation activities;
4. Enhance disaster response capacity and coordination and foster the development of new capabilities; and,
5. Strengthen recovery efforts by building back better to minimize the impacts of future disasters.

After approving the EM Strategy, FPT Ministers Responsible for Emergency Management directed the Senior Officials Responsible for Emergency Management (SOREM) to develop and advance a series of Action Plans to advance the implementation of the EM Strategy to 2030. SOREM represents the collection of FPT government organizations who lead emergency management efforts on behalf of their respective jurisdiction. The Action Plan is intended to advance defined outcomes within the EM Strategy, and to develop the concrete steps that FPT governments, and respective EM Partners, intend to take to advance resilience to disasters within Canada. The 2021-22 Interim Action Plan was approved by FPT Ministers in March 2022 (March 17th, 2022), and published online.

National Risk Profile
The National Risk Profile (NRP) is a deliverable under the Emergency Management Strategy for Canada: Toward a Resilient 2030 and supports priorities to enhance whole-of-society collaboration and governance to strengthen resilience, and improve the understanding of disaster risks in all sectors of society. The NRP is also a mandate letter commitment for the President of the King’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Emergency Preparedness, as a means to inform decision-making and planning.

As Canada’s first strategic, national-level disaster risk and capability assessment, the National Risk profile, or NRP, will help increase national resilience to these events. It uses scientific evidence and whole-of-society stakeholder input, including Indigenous engagement, in order to strengthen national resilience to disaster risks.

The first NRP public report was released on May 11, 2023, and focuses on earthquakes, wildland fires and floods, as well as the cascading impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on these hazards. Future rounds will focus on other natural hazards as well as others, such as industrial leaks, and non-malicious and malicious threats.

Flood Insurance and Relocation
December 2021’s mandate letter for the Minister for Emergency Preparedness committed to ‘‘take action to help Canadians be prepared for, and recover from, the impact of floods in high risk areas; Creating a low-cost national flood insurance program to protect homeowners who are at high risk of flooding and do not have adequate insurance protection; and Developing strategies, in partnerships with the insurance industry and private sector, to lower insurance premiums and identify cost-effective ways to protect communities and homes from climate impacts.”

This mandate commitment was actioned through a Public Safety Canada-led task force on flood insurance and relocation, set up in January 2021. The task force brought together representatives from Federal, Provincial and Territorial (FPT) governments and the insurance industry with a view to examine alternative viable options for the insurance program and potential ways that relocation can support risk reduction, and was based on an extensive financial risk assessment and actuarial analysis of flood insurance options for Canada. Results of this work were published in the August 2022 report “Adapting to Rising Flood Risk: An Analysis of Insurance Solutions for Canada”, available on Public Safety’s website.

Building on the success of the Task Force work, Budget 2023 announced the following actions supporting flood insurance and flood risk communication in Canada:

1. The “federal government’s intention to launch, in partnership with provinces and territories, a new approach to address gaps in natural disaster protection and help Canadians access affordable insurance”, and;
2. Funding of “$31.7 million over three years, starting in 2023-24, to Public Safety Canada and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to work with the Department of Finance Canada to stand-up a low-cost flood insurance program, aimed at protecting households at high risk of flooding and without access to adequate insurance. This would include offering reinsurance through a federal Crown corporation and a separate insurance subsidy program”.
3. Funding of “$15.3 million over three years, starting in 2023-24, to Public Safety Canada to create a publicly accessible online portal where Canadians can access information on their exposure to flooding”.

Other federal programming
Reducing disaster risk and vulnerability and building resilient communities are objectives supported by the activities of a range of federal departments and agencies. Public Safety Canada is working on creating a new low-cost national flood insurance program, as well as an action plan to assist homeowners with potential relocation. Canada is also working collaboration with provinces, territories and Indigenous communities, we are working to complete flood maps for areas at the highest risk of flooding in Canada.

Programs and funding across the federal government serve to mitigate the impacts of threats and hazards to Canadians and Canadian communities, including Indigenous communities. Some examples include:
• Business Risk Management (Agriculture and Agri-Foods Canada);
• Climate-resilient Building Codes and Guides (National Research Council);
• DMAF (Infrastructure Canada);
• Emergency Management Assistance Program (Indigenous Services Canada); and,
• Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change (Environment and Climate Change Canada)

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