Canada’s rising disaster costs call for adaptive design

Climate change continues to worsen in high-risk areas, and certain policy decisions are converging to make disasters more common, more costly, and harder to overlook.

Water is pumped from a flooded home in Ottawa's Constance Bay area in April 2019. Floods are by far the most expensive hazard, costing an estimated $1.2-billion annually, followed by wildfires, and storms. Canada can no longer afford to treat disasters as one-offs, writes Hossein Bonakdari.The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade

Opinion

BY HOSSEIN BONAKDARI

December 23, 2025

The Parliamentary Budget Office now predicts that federal disaster assist...

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