The Insurance Bureau of Canada is already in the process of transforming itself from an organization largely there to insure against fire, to one that's increasingly focused on flooding, says Harford. That means at least half a million buildings at risk of flooding are not identified on current government flood maps, and “virtually none of them show how climate change may affect the future risk of flooding,” notes the Under Water study. Of Canada’s total infrastructure value, almost 85 per cent is found in privately owned homes, according to Statistics Canada.Ĭurrent national flood risk maps, which are used to underwrite insurance, inform home buyers and help plan new infrastructure, are 20 to 25 years out of date, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada.

We do know people’s homes are expected to bear the brunt of the risk. There are huge gaps in our understanding of how such catastrophic damage will play out. To bring infrastructure up to an acceptable standard would require a $250-billion investment, estimate the authors.īut wait too long, and the coming decades of temperature extremes and flooding would hike the yearly bill by billions of dollars more.

Much of that is falling into disrepair, or for many Indigenous communities, never existed in the first place. The future costs of flooding, extreme heat and more rain are projected to extend beyond homes and businesses. Up to half of Canada’s growth over the past 45 years has come from investments in public infrastructure, including everything from roads, water pipes and bridges to the electric grid, phone lines and broadband Internet. “You get these municipalities that are kind of caught between the land and the sea, where they face a higher risk of flooding because there's so much valuable infrastructure and so many homes crammed in there,” says Deborah Harford, former executive director of SFU’s Adaptation to Climate Change Team and an expert consultant for CICC. In what the researchers are claiming is the largest study to date on the impacts of climate change on the country’s infrastructure, the Canadian Institute for Climate Choices (CICC) says Canada is walking blindingly toward a multi-billion-dollar bill.

Hundreds of thousands of Canadians are unknowingly buying homes and relying on infrastructure in areas at high risk of bursting rivers, extreme temperatures and rising seas, warns a new report.

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