Canada: unprepared for natural disasters

A Public Safety draft June 2019 memo noted that climate change losses to the economy could be as high as $5-billion in 2020 and could escalate to between $20-billion to $40-billion a year by the 2050s.

Military personnel, pictured April 30, 2019, trying to block the rising Ottawa River at Constance Bay, just outside of Ottawa. The Canadian Forces units were deployed to flood zones along the Ottawa River Valley last spring in response to record high water levels on both the Ontario and Quebec sides of the river. Canada needs to be less secretive and more transparent in its efforts to tackle emergencies and not hide its deficiencies in awakening to imminent risks posed by increasing natural disasters, writes Ken Rubin. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade

Opinion

BY KEN RUBIN

January 20, 2020

OTTAWA—The terrifying Australian bush fires is one of the more explosive events of increasing climate change emergencies. Here in Canada, two recently obtained sets of access to information records from Public Safety and Agriculture Canada are not exactly reassuring for Canada's preparedness for ...

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