Don Forgeron is the president and CEO of the Insurance Bureau of Canada.
In a small motorboat, a family in raincoats huddles together as they putter down their town’s main street. A man waist-deep in water stumbles a little as he carries his dog to safety. A young couple watches as the water washes over the sandbags and into their new home.
In Canada, we are no longer shocked when we see flood images flash across our television screens. Whether it’s rivers overflowing their banks in springtime, flash floods from extreme rainfall or tidal waters lashing houses during furious coastal storms, these flooding events are now a regular occurrence across our country. Flooding is simultaneously our greatest immediate threat from climate change and the one we’re least prepared for.
When our homes are at risk of flooding, our financial security is at risk, too. For many of us, our homes are our biggest source of equity – they are either our retirement savings or the inheritance we will pass on to our children. When a house burns down, it is almost always covered by insurance. But when a house floods, we are often on our own or at the mercy of government bailouts. Home values can plummet after a flood. Banks may refuse to provide mortgages on properties at risk. And although insurers now offer products for overland flooding, the homes at highest risk may be uninsurable, or if insurance is available, it most likely will be considered unaffordable.
As a country, we are collectively failing to protect Canadians from floods and keep people out of harm’s way. We are failing to reduce the financial impact of floods. And we are failing to educate Canadians about the increasing risks they face.
What Canada needs is bold, co-ordinated political action. All levels of government should collaborate to deliver a national action plan on flooding within the context of the National Emergency Plan that the federal, provincial and territorial ministers responsible for emergency management approved in January, 2019.
The Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC) recommends that the national action plan on flooding include three components. The first is education. The federal government should launch, in collaboration with insurers, realtors and mortgage lenders, a national authoritative portal that all home and business owners can access to determine their level of flood risk and learn what to do about it. Since this portal will rely on national flood maps that are current, Natural Resources Canada should immediately invest in improving the quality of terrain data, which forms the foundation of all public- and private-sector flood mapping.
The second component should be relocation and protection. IBC recommends that federal and provincial governments collaborate after a flood on appropriate measures to either move or elevate those homes that will repeatedly flood and are uninsurable. For remaining high-risk homes, governments should target priority infrastructure investments in the highest-risk areas to effectively protect as many people as possible. They should leverage natural infrastructure wherever possible as a low-cost complement to more traditional flood protection measures. And as insurers, we have offered to work together, as they did in Britain, to develop high-risk insurance pools for those remaining high-risk residents to ensure they can access affordable insurance. In short, this component is about working together to move a few, then protect and insure the rest.
Finally, the third component is about changing our ways. Provincial and municipal governments across Canada should immediately amend land-use planning and permitting processes to prohibit development on flood plains. Why do we continue to place families in danger by building homes on flood plains? Why do governments now open themselves up to liability? Going forward, no new home or construction built on a flood plain should be eligible for disaster assistance or subsidized insurance.
These are bold moves, but we must approach flooding boldly. A flood does more than destroy your sofa and family photos. It can leave its mark on your mental well-being. Research shows that even if only your basement floods, you may worry every time it rains for years after the event. The gentle tip-tap of raindrops on your bedroom window at night can turn a peaceful dream into a nightmare.
Even if you don’t own property, you still have a stake in flood prevention and mitigation. The federal government’s flood-related costs have risen from $40-million a year in the 1970s to $600-million annually in this decade. If you pay taxes, you help pick up that tab.
We are not starting from scratch. Thanks to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, Ralph Goodale, and his provincial colleagues across the country of all political stripes, we have laid the groundwork. Now is the time to weave the disparate threads together into a cohesive whole.
We are all stakeholders. No one expects a flood to happen to them, in their community, on their street. But it does – again and again. It’s time every political party’s platform for the federal election includes a national flood plan. Rain is in the forecast, and it won’t be a light drizzle. It will be the type of torrential storm that turns lives upside down. It’s time – no, it’s past the time – for governments to take action.