{"id":164741,"date":"2025-12-02T19:02:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T19:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/164741\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T19:02:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T19:02:08","slug":"from-earthquakes-to-wildfires-canada-is-woefully-ill-prepared-for-disasters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/164741\/","title":{"rendered":"From earthquakes to wildfires, Canada is woefully ill-prepared for disasters"},"content":{"rendered":"

A fault line in Canada\u2019s Yukon territory<\/a> has stirred after more than 12,000 years of geological sleep. Researchers studying the Tintina Fault<\/a>, which stretches 1,000 kilometres from northeast British Columbia into the Yukon and towards Alaska, have found evidence that the fault has built up at least six metres of unrelieved strain.<\/p>\n

Like a loaded weapon, it may now be primed for a massive earthquake. To most Canadians, the news passed as a remote curiosity from the North, but the fault lies within a tectonic system that extends under Western Canada and hints at deeper vulnerabilities in eastern Ontario and beyond. Below the surface lies an uneasy truth: Canada is not immune to catastrophe.<\/p>\n

A wildfire burned through the hills of Los Angeles in early 2025. Schools closed, emergency alerts buzzed across phones and emergency crews scrambled to get ahead of the flames as Southern California experienced one of its worst wildfire seasons on record, again. <\/p>\n

Read more:
\n False alerts \u2014 like the one sent during the Greater Los Angeles wildfires \u2014 can undermine trust and provoke anxiety<\/a><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in Canada, smoke from record-breaking wildfires blanketed major cities<\/a>, sending air quality plummeting in Ottawa, Toronto and Montr\u00e9al.<\/p>\n

These events may feel far apart, but they share one common feature: a failure to act before the crisis hits.<\/p>\n

Ignoring early warning signs<\/p>\n

A recent survey found that most Canadians don\u2019t believe their communities are ready for a major disaster<\/a>. And yet, outside of the occasional fire drill or emergency alert test, Canadians continue living as though preparedness is someone else\u2019s job.<\/p>\n

But readiness isn\u2019t just about cramming bottled water into your basement or changing the batteries in your smoke alarms. It\u2019s about how we think, and more importantly, what we choose to ignore.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The cover of the author\u2019s book on disaster preparedness.
\n (University of Toronto Press)<\/p>\n

As a writer and prevention-minded physician, I\u2019ve spent years studying how disasters unfold and how they might have been prevented. My new book, Written in Blood: Lessons on Prevention from a Risky World<\/a>, investigates tragedies like nuclear meltdowns, natural disasters and pandemics. In case after case, I found a pattern: early warning signs were ignored, systems failed to communicate and people trusted that \u201csomeone else\u201d had it covered.<\/p>\n

The real danger isn\u2019t nature or technology, it\u2019s complacency.<\/p>\n

Responding to the last disaster, not the next one<\/p>\n

In Canada, the year 2023 saw the most hectares burned in wildfire history<\/a>. Yet only one in four Canadian households reported making any preparation for a weather-related emergency in the past year<\/a>. <\/p>\n

When we ignore the cracks in our systems, we normalize risk. It\u2019s easy to imagine preparedness as the government\u2019s job or the job of emergency responders. But the reality is more complex, and the responsibilities should be more widespread.<\/p>\n

Cities continue using outdated flood-risk maps that underestimate current climate realities. Schools overlook basic upgrades to improve air quality or ventilation. Transit networks run on aging infrastructure. <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Flood waters in Grand Valley, Ont., along the Grand River, in March 2025.
\n THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Rob Skeoch<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s cyber-security agency recently warned that hostile entities are targeting internet-connected control systems across the country<\/a>, including those that manage water supplies, energy infrastructure and agricultural operations.<\/p>\n

Read more:
\n Silent cyber threats: How shadow AI could undermine Canada\u2019s digital health defences<\/a><\/p>\n

The lesson here isn\u2019t that Canadians need to panic, it\u2019s that they need to think differently. In sectors like aviation or nuclear energy, safety is baked into every process. These fields rely on layered safeguards, robust near-miss reporting and a culture of constant vigilance. They know safety isn\u2019t a checkbox, it\u2019s a mindset.<\/p>\n

So why doesn\u2019t that same mindset exist in other parts of our society, and how can Canadian officials ensure it does?<\/p>\n

A prevention mindset<\/p>\n

Instead of reacting to disasters once they happen, Canadians should be asking:<\/p>\n

What could go wrong here?
\nWhat would I wish I had done if it does go wrong?<\/p>\n

This approach \u2014 a prevention mindset \u2014 doesn\u2019t mean living in fear. It means being proactive when the headlines are quiet. It means investing in safety when no crisis is visible and building defences before something breaks.<\/p>\n

Take the Los Angeles wildfire as a case study. Fire crews had been warning about dry conditions for months. Urban expansion<\/a> and outdated building codes exacerbated the damage. <\/p>\n

At the same time, cities in Canada had barely updated evacuation plans or wildfire risk assessments<\/a>, despite years of worsening climate conditions. Last summer, toxic wildfire smoke shut down outdoor events<\/a> , harmed the lung health<\/a> of a large proportion of Canadians and exposed major planning failures.<\/p>\n

These are not just \u201cacts of God.\u201d They\u2019re also policy choices, deferred upgrades and missing item lines in a budget. And they are repeated across sectors \u2014 from health care to cybersecurity, from education to urban planning.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A helicopter drops water on the Dryden Creek Wildfire, just north of Squamish, B.C., in June 2025.
\n THE CANADIAN PRESS\/ Tijana Martin<\/p>\n

Safety must be built<\/p>\n

Disasters feel sudden, but their roots often stretch back years. In Written in Blood, I explore the slow buildup to catastrophes like the Fukushima nuclear meltdown<\/a> in Japan, the Notre- Dame fire<\/a> in Paris and the Beirut port explosion<\/a>. These were not lightning strikes \u2014 they were failures of imagination, leadership and system design.<\/p>\n

The next crisis, whether wildfire, data breach, infrastructure collapse or disease outbreak, is already somewhere on the horizon.<\/p>\n

The question isn\u2019t if it will happen. It\u2019s whether we will meet it with surprise \u2014 or with a plan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A fault line in Canada\u2019s Yukon territory has stirred after more than 12,000 years of geological sleep. Researchers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164742,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":{"0":"post-164741","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}