Getting governments at all levels to cooperate is a key challenge to strengthening Canada’s aging transport infrastructure against the damaging effects of climate change, says a multi-partisan Senate committee.
“Ultimately, it is in the best interest of all Canadians for our critical infrastructure vulnerabilities to be addressed,” Senators Leo Housakos and Julie Miville-Dechêne, respectively the chair and deputy chair of the Senate Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications, told The Energy Mix.
“This should motivate all levels of government to work together to address these issues.”
The Standing Committee recently released [pdf] a report that considers four case studies of infrastructure that will be affected by climate impacts like coastal erosion, thawing permafrost, rising sea levels, and extreme weather events.
Floods, forest fires, landslides, hurricanes, and low water levels are but a few of the threats facing Canada’s roads, rails, airports, and shipping routes, committee member Senator Paula Simons wrote in a LinkedIn post. “Our findings were disturbing, indeed shocking.”
While government responses to climate change are often contended across party lines—policies like carbon pricing are a war zone, with Liberals digging their heels in against more “carve-outs” while Conservatives march to “axe the tax,” for one example—the report was a multi-partisan effort from a committee that includes senators from all groups and caucuses in the Senate.
Research for the report included meetings with all three orders of government, Indigenous peoples, and witnesses from key sectors. It details how the increasing frequency of severe climate events like flooding and major storms promises to disrupt supply chains, transportation, and communities across the country.
Many witnesses contacted for the report “stressed the importance of having efficient, well-maintained infrastructure,” while referring on several occasions to “the aging state of the infrastructure, which makes it increasingly vulnerable to climate disruptions,” the committee wrote in the report.
In Canada’s North, transportation networks are being severely affected by the warming climate, particularly winter travel ways like ice roads that are only accessible during a shortening season. Air transport is increasingly relied upon—even though it’s expensive and emissions intensive—but airports, too, are under threat from melting permafrost, while roads and rail lines are being damaged by worsening wildfire seasons.
That’s on top of a “substantial infrastructure deficit” that has seen the North chronically underfunded, the committee added. Witnesses said getting on track would be difficult and costly.
Infrastructure in other parts of the country—like the Port of Vancouver and Vancouver International Airport in British Columbia and the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway in Quebec and Ontario—have their own problems related to changing seasons and water levels. Responses to these challenges are often held up by bureaucratic red tape, or by legal and contractual barriers.
Out East, the Chignecto Isthmus—a strip of land connecting New Brunswick and Nova Scotia—is at risk from severe weather events and flooding from rising sea levels. The Isthmus is the only road and rail connection between the two provinces, with about C$35 billion worth of goods traversing it each year. The provinces have applied for federal funding to protect the travel way at a cost of $650 to $700 million, but are calling on the federal government to fund the entire project. So far, the two have not agreed on who will pay.
The Senate committee wrote that “the situation regarding the Chignecto Isthmus stood out as a particular example where the federal government could play a leadership role,” adding that municipal leaders have also called on provincial and federal governments to step up.
While collaboration emerged as a key theme overall, municipal and Indigenous leaders say they are not always consulted. The federal government could also take some cues from the private sector about how to prepare for climate impacts, the committee wrote.
“With so much work to be done and so many different groups involved, change will not come overnight,” Housakos and Miville-Dechêne said. “That’s why we are urging the federal government to start tackling these issues now, before it’s too late.”
