On the afternoon of August 4, 2014, the sky opened up over Burlington, Ontario.\u00a0<\/p>\n
An MPP at the time, Eleanor McMahon visited the site of the ensuing flood, where she destroyed pair after pair of shoes wading through basements full of backed-up sewage in ruined homes. \u201cThere was fecal matter in the water. In hindsight, I should have wrapped those shoes with plastic bags.\u201d<\/p>\n
McMahon, who represented the provincial Ontario riding of Burlington from 2014 to 2018 and served in then-premier Kathleen Wynne\u2019s cabinet, has a clear memory of the flood\u2019s aftermath. The microburst was hyperlocalized and hammered just one section of the city, yet still flooded some 3,000 homes and caused about $80 million in damages, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt happened very quickly. The water came down escarpments into eroded creek beds, trees fell over, and the water started to build up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOne family I met described a six-foot-tall wall of water that flooded their house within minutes,\u201d said McMahon in an interview with\u00a0Canada\u2019s National Observer. \u201cThey grabbed a few keepsakes and ran out the door. They were terrified.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Canada is exceptionally vulnerable to flooding, a problem that is getting worse thanks to climate change. But the country is also struggling with a housing crisis \u2014 and that\u2019s leading governments to cut regulations designed to ensure new housing is flood resilient. The urgent need for housing is running into the equally urgent need to implement effective flooding mitigation and prevention strategies, and a critical lack of coordination, consistency and communication between jurisdictions is undermining efforts on both fronts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s widely acknowledged that we have a housing crisis in Canada,\u201d says Jennifer Drake, Canada Research Chair in Stormwater and Low Impact Development at Carlton University. \u201cWe need to build more houses more quickly. But some of the policy changes that are being implemented to achieve that goal are coming at the cost of resiliency measures.\u201d<\/p>\n
Invisible solutions<\/p>\n
Most Canadian cities were built next to bodies of water, and much of Canada\u2019s housing stock lies in floodplains. About 80 per cent of\u00a0Canadian cities<\/a> are built, in whole or in part, on floodplains and 1.5 million homes are in areas now considered to have a high flood risk. Yet one of the outstanding issues is flood mapping \u2014 it hasn’t kept pace with climate change. Stormwater management is equally outdated. The result is a habit of making the same mistake over and over. In 2023, the Canadian Climate Institute reported that Canada was on track to\u00a0build 540,000 homes in flood-prone<\/a> areas by 2030, despite the obvious dangers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Complicating matters are new extreme weather events, from increased winter precipitation to earlier spring freshets and summer microbursts.<\/p>\n According to the Canadian Climate Institute, flooding caused about\u00a0$800 million in insured damages<\/a> annually between 2014 and 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n Updating flood maps and installing new rain gauges can help plan for the future, but the information they provide will have serious consequences for people who suddenly find themselves living in high-risk areas. Because so many homes across Canada were built where the risk of flooding is now higher, there\u2019s a distinct possibility significant numbers of properties may become uninsurable and unsaleable. This, in turn, could have devastating consequences for people depending on the sale of their home for retirement income, to say nothing of squeezing available housing stock.<\/p>\n Mitigating the risk of future floods will require an unprecedented level of cooperation between levels of government, massive investments in new flood mitigation infrastructure and a much better understanding of where the risk is highest.<\/p>\n Flooding is an inherently multi-jurisdictional issue in a country where all levels of government struggle to coordinate and cooperate. Improvements to stormwater infrastructure can be expensive and may not result in the same political returns as a new school, hospital or park. If new stormwater infrastructure works, you likely won\u2019t notice it. It\u2019s only when it fails that people pay attention.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mercifully, flooding doesn\u2019t kill many Canadians, most years. But the devastation costs families, governments and insurance companies a fortune. In addition to the extreme financial hardship imposed upon its victims, flooding inevitably packs an emotional wallop: The contents of anyone\u2019s basement can be considerable and irreplaceable.<\/p>\n To put the extent of the problem in context, consider that\u00a0eight of the 10 highest insured severe-weather loss years<\/a> on record occurred within the last decade and six involved major flooding. Losses in Canada ranged from $6.5 to $9.4 billion.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s at the local level that the complexities of responding to flooding come into focus, including governments working at cross purposes.<\/p>\n Last November, Ontario\u00a0quietly repealed legislation<\/a> that had allowed Toronto to force new buildings to have green roofs, which soak up rainwater and aid flood prevention. Then, in early March, the Ford government introduced Bill 98, which effectively killed the Toronto Green Standard, a landmark building policy that incentivized homebuilders to develop sustainably, lower their carbon footprint and provide chargers for electric vehicles. According to a recent report by Corporate Knights, the Toronto Green Standard had the effect of removing\u00a0nearly one million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions<\/a> over the past 16 years and, further, saved homeowners roughly $407.6 million in utility costs.\u00a0<\/p>\n Increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases the impact of climate change, and this in turn means an increased flooding risk.<\/p>\n Ontario\u2019s apparent disregard for flood mitigation comes at a time when most regions in Canada now experience more extreme storms and torrential rain. The 2014 Burlington storm dumped 200 millimetres \u2014\u00a0about two months\u2019 worth of rain \u2014\u00a0in a very localized area. Rain gauges located close to one another recorded vastly different amounts of rainfall. Neighbouring\u00a0Hamilton<\/a> had no rain at all. At the time, David Phillips, then an Environment Canada senior climatologist, described it as a\u00a0\u201cnew breed\u201d of storm<\/a>. Since then, Canada has experienced many more extreme rains, including\u00a0BC\u2019s 2021 atmospheric river<\/a> that flooded huge swaths of farmland and city streets.\u00a0<\/p>\n The warming of the planet means warm air can hold more water, which is released in heavier and more extreme rainfall events. This, in turn, increases the likelihood of flash flooding, particularly in urban areas where antiquated infrastructure is quickly overwhelmed.\u00a0<\/p>\n A predictable disaster<\/p>\n Media coverage of flooding shows that often, Canada\u2019s major cities are\u00a0unprepared for an annual problem<\/a>. Instead of investing in better infrastructure, governments tend to take a reactive approach. When flood warnings are issued, mayors activate\u00a0various local emergency plans<\/a> and try to reassure nervous homeowners. But those plans are usually limited to filling sandbags, asking residents to check to make sure their sump pumps are working and\u00a0waiting to see what happens next<\/a>.<\/p>\n In an interview with CBC Montreal earlier this year, Jim Beis, borough mayor of the Montreal suburb of Roxboro-Pierrefonds, neatly summarized \u2014 perhaps unintentionally \u2014 what might be\u00a0climate change\u2019s \u201cthoughts and prayers\u201d<\/a> equivalent: \u201cYou never know with Mother Nature.\u201d<\/p>\n Beis was borough mayor during floods that occurred in 2017 and 2019. The 2017 flood was the most destructive, causing an estimated\u00a0$223 million<\/a> in insured damage to the region and leaving some residents unable to return home for more\u00a0than six months<\/a>. Though the 2019 flood only\u00a0cost Montreal $17 million<\/a>, it lasted longer. Those floods prompted the regional planning body for Greater Montreal to develop new flood maps, which became available in October 2024. They deemed 1,800 properties with\u00a0an approximate value of $10 billion<\/a> in Roxboro-Pierrefonds alone to now lie within the flood zone. That was a 150-per-cent increase over the previous estimate.<\/p>\n On June 20, Roxboro-Pierrefonds flooded again. Between\u00a0150 and 170 millimetres<\/a> of rain fell in two hours, overwhelming the borough\u2019s stormwater infrastructure, some of which hasn\u2019t been updated since it was first built in the 1960s. The adjacent city of Dollard-des-Ormeaux was also hit by flooding. Twenty thousand people lost power, basements flooded in hundreds of homes and cars were seen floating in the middle of streets.\u00a0<\/p>\n The problem isn\u2019t limited to cities, however, as recent flooding in Western Manitoba amply demonstrates.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve never seen a flood of this size,\u201d says Bill Gade, Reeve of Swan Valley West, a rural municipality about 380-kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, straddling the Saskatchewan border. \u201cWe had three more feet of water than any of the previous floods, it\u2019s a massive volume.\u201d<\/p>\n Heavy rain on June 7 and 8 caused various rivers that crisscross the area to spill over their banks, resulting in flash flooding throughout the area. \u201cAt first it was for five or six hours,\u201d says Gade, \u201cbut then it stayed over for three days.\u201d<\/p>\n The flooding forced 150 residents of the town of Swan River to evacuate, and Gade says about 600 more were affected in the surrounding area. The storm\u00a0knocked out power and ripped roads apart<\/a>, stranding some.<\/p>\n Gade estimates damage caused by the storm will run between $8 to $12 million dollars. \u201cWe have an annual budget \u2014 for the whole municipality \u2014 of $4 million,\u201d he said. And while no one was killed or injured, the flood has nonetheless been devastating.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhere homes have flooded, they have two or three feet of water in their basements, some have water on the main floors,\u201d Gade said. \u201cAll those basements have to be gutted, stripped down to the studs, and then cleaned to prevent mold. People are doing the work themselves, but they need help. There are perhaps 10 to15 residents who\u2019ve lost everything; all their belongings have to go straight to the landfill.\u201d<\/p>\n Like most Canadians, those impacted by floods in Swan Valley West don\u2019t have overland flood insurance, Gade said in an interview with\u00a0Canada\u2019s National Observer. \u201cWe\u2019re talking about people who live several miles away from the river \u2014 they never thought they would need it.\u201d<\/p>\n A 2021\u00a0CBC News\u00a0investigation revealed that about 10 per cent of all homes in Canada\u00a0may be completely uninsurable<\/a> due to flood risk.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMost people don\u2019t know they live in a flood-vulnerable zone and there\u2019s often no requirement to disclose,\u201d Drake said.<\/p>\n Drake knows this from personal experience looking to buy a home. \u201cWhen I moved to Ottawa, I looked at properties, and then later, realized they were in a 100-year flood zone. If I wasn\u2019t a water nerd, I wouldn\u2019t have known that.\u201d<\/p>\n