Federal Disaster Aid Program to Become Conditional on Having Climate Change Adaptation Plans

Minister of Emergency Preparedness Bill Blair rises during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Feb. 28, 2022. Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

The federal disaster aid program will soon be made conditional, requiring future applications to show adaptation to climate change in order to be eligible, said Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair, as the government launches a review of the program.

Blair was in British Columbia this week to provide the second instalment of disaster aid for the 2021 floods that prompted the province to declare a state of emergency. This payment brings the federal aid to B.C. to over $1 billion. Blair, however, said that the government can’t keep sending out billions of dollars in financial relief without trying to prevent similar damage.

“I want those recovery funds tied to new building codes and new planning around how we can build back more resilient communities,” he told The Canadian Press.

“Just building it back where it was and how it was prior to these events, when we know that they are occurring with greater frequency and severity, it wouldn’t do much [good] to continue to pay this money out.”

Rising Expenses

The federal government’s primary instrument for provinces and territories that need funding to rebuild after major natural disasters is the Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements (DFAA), which has been under review since last November.

Since the DFAA was introduced in 1970, it has contributed more than $6.1 billion to provinces and territories, over 63 percent of which was paid out in the last 10 years, according to a March 2022 press release.

Blair said he expects the program to hit that same total again to cover just the last two years of damage, resulting from the deadly wildfires in B.C. in the summer of 2021 and the widespread flooding that ravaged large swaths of the Lower Mainland and Okanagan Valley several months later.

Those two events alone are expected to exceed $5 billion in recovery costs.

Blair said at least another $1 billion is expected to go to the Atlantic provinces to support their recovery from post-tropical storm Fiona last fall.

The program is also approved or expected to be used for other events in 2021 and 2022, including flooding in Manitoba and Northwest Territories, forest fires in Saskatchewan, a November rain and wind storm in Nova Scotia, and hurricane Larry that swept across Newfoundland and Labrador.

In a 2020 background document, Public Safety Canada said the standard annual appropriation for DFAA is $100 million, which is falling short of the actual expenses in recent years.

“In recent years, $100M has been typically insufficient to cover requests for federal funding,” the document said, noting that Budget 2019 provided the department with an additional $260 million to cover the obligations over two years.

Still, the program’s budget allocation remains $100 million to start, including in the current year.

Currently, the DFAA places no restrictions on provincial or territorial governments in regard to how they decide the amounts and types of assistance they will provide to those who have experienced losses, meaning that they are free to design the disaster financial assistance appropriate to the particular disaster and the circumstances, and the DFAA set out what costs will be eligible for cost-sharing with the federal government.

Provinces have to apply for help within six months but the costs can be submitted for up to five years. Each province has a population-based deductible before the program kicks in. In Prince Edward Island, DFAA kicks in when the costs hit $561,000, while in Ontario it doesn’t take effect until they top more than $50 million.

Ottawa then pays for up to 90 percent of the remaining costs based on a specific formula.

Overhaul

Public Safety Canada launched a review of the DFAA last year, aimed “to ensure there is an updated, comprehensive system available to provinces and territories for disaster recovery,” said the government’s website. The public safety minister has also appointed an advisory panel to review and make recommendations to update the DFAA.

Blair said he was meeting with the panel chair in B.C. on Feb. 24 to discuss the updates to DFAA, and that a plan will be presented to provincial and territorial emergency preparedness ministers later this spring.

He said rebuilding better, more resilient communities will save money in the future, and will also better ensure the safety of the people.

In Lytton, B.C., where a devastating wildfire occurred in June 2021, rebuilding is still on hold and awaiting a final remediation plan. Blair said the federal government is committed to helping with the recovery costs, but the rebuilt community isn’t going to be the same as the old one.

“We want to rebuild that community in a way that’s fire smart and it’s going to be more resilient to this type of natural event,” he said.

That means, he said, smarter, fire-aware building codes, using fire-retardant materials, and designing structures to reduce their vulnerability to fires.

The Canadian Press contributed to this report.