Kristen Villebrun and Wendy Bush hoped they wouldn't have to pray for Chedoke Creek, but four years after they first raised alarm about the water's condition, they were part of an Indigenous full moon ceremony to do just that. About 50 people showed up near Princess Point on the dark and frigid Monday evening for the monthly ceremony, which was particularly special as it focused on Chedoke Creek. The body of water that runs into Cootes Paradise had about 24 billion litres of sewage and storm water runoff leak into it due to a gate being left open.
The costs and damages of flooding are overwhelming communities along coasts, near rivers and on big lakes. Across the country, urban floods are happening at a rate and extent that is pushing disaster resilience to the forefront of public safety discussions. We all pay the price of more frequent flooding, even if the danger and damage are happening in someone else’s town. In fact, the Insurance Institute of Canada reports that the multi-billion-dollar cost of insurance claims is on track to more than double over the course of a decade.
As southern Pakistan grapples with deadly flooding along the Indus River, residents of another country with a lengthy history of floods may be wondering if it could happen here. With three coasts, nearly 900,000 lakes and more than 8,500 rivers, significant flooding events are part of Canada’s past and its future. They’re also Canada’s most expensive and most common natural hazards, according to Public Safety Canada, affecting hundreds of thousands of Canadians.
Damage to Earth’s oceans and glaciers from climate change is outpacing the ability of governments to protect them, a new report from an international scientific panel concludes. “The capacity of governance systems in polar and ocean regions to respond to climate change impacts has strengthened recently,” says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “But this development is not sufficiently rapid or robust to adequately address the scale of increasing projected risks.”
