Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault on Monday chose a green space in Montreal located near the site coveted by the City to carry out the Grand Parc de l’Ouest project to announce the launch of a public consultation on the national strategy. adaptation to climate change in Canada.
This process, the launch of which was marked by a symposium in which a thousand people took part online on Monday, aims to consult the public, various organizations and the business community to determine the measures to be taken by the various levels of government to reduce the country’s carbon footprint while making it better prepared for the many impacts of climate change. Among them are forest fires – which are on the increase – as well as droughts, floods and growing food supply challenges in various regions.
At the same time, Mr. Guilbeault went to the Parc des Anciens-Combattants, located just across the Rivière des Prairies, in the borough of Pierrefonds-Roxboro, to discuss Canada’s future national adaptation strategy that this consultation aims to refine. The choice of location to hold this press briefing was not insignificant, since this sector was hard hit in 2017, then in 2019, by spring floods with major repercussions.
Met on site by The duty, the borough mayor, Dimitrios Jim Beis, said he hopes that this public consultation will ultimately help to meet the financial challenges facing the metropolis to prevent floods and react when they occur. Because currently, the financial and human resources that must be deployed for this purpose annually are “incredible”, he mentioned, reporting expenditures of $7 million in 2019. This year, by chance, the borough has been spared by the spring flood, which has not caused any major damage so far.
“We can’t keep doing this every year. […] We have to get organized to find more permanent solutions, ”he said in an interview, highlighting, for example, the creation of low walls or natural dikes. The borough mayor then declared in a press briefing alongside Mr. Guilbeault that he welcomed this consultation, which should lead to a first action plan this fall.
This press conference also took place near the place coveted by the administration of Valérie Plante to carry out her Grand Parc de l’Ouest project. This huge green space of 3000 hectares, which will eventually serve as a “natural buffer zone” to prevent flooding, benefited in 2019 from financial support of 50 million dollars, recalled Steven Guilbeault on Monday.
Asked by The dutythe Minister was however evasive about the possibility that Ottawa would increase its financial contribution to this project, the bill of which could suffer from a lawsuit initiated in 2019 on the part of the promoters behind the immense real estate project of Cap- Nature, in Pierrefonds-Ouest.
“One of the objectives of the national strategy […], is to determine what the needs are in the short, medium and long term. The federal government has invested nearly four billion dollars in climate change adaptation, which is unprecedented, but we are very aware that more will have to be done,” said Mr. Guilbeault. .
We need aboriginal leaders around the table because no one has the only solution to this issue.
Indigenous people suffer
Several indigenous leaders also took part in the symposium held in virtual format on Monday. Federal government experts estimate, among other things, that global warming is taking place at a rate three times higher in northern Canada, which has several Aboriginal and Inuit communities, than in the rest of the world. It would be twice as high as the world average in the south of the country.
“What we see, on the impacts of climate change in Canada, is that the people most affected are vulnerable people, racialized communities and more particularly Indigenous communities. So it is clear that in the development of the strategy, there will be particular attention paid to these populations. […] with whom we want to work for the deployment of solutions in terms of adaptation – and therefore preparation – for the impacts of climate change,” assured Minister Guilbeault on Monday, during the media question period.
“We need indigenous leaders around the table because no one has the only solution to this issue,” he then added.
Minister Steven Guilbeault also took advantage of this event to announce financial support of $650,000 to the Ouranos organization to enable it to hold the seventh edition of the Adaptation Futures conference, which will take place in October 2023 in Montreal. . “Together, we will ensure that Canadians lead the way, not just in preventing climate change, but in protecting themselves from its effects,” concluded Mr. Guilbeault.