Opinion: What Canada can learn from the devastating wildfires in California
For thousands of Los Angeles-area residents, the past couple of weeks have been a time of hardship and heartbreak. Homes and businesses lost, lives uprooted and an iconic region forever changed. The impact of wildfires is devastating.
This is a story that many Canadians are all too familiar with — people in Jasper and Fort McMurray, Alberta, or Lytton, B.C. In the aftermath of those fires, we could confidently tell people that insurance was widely available and that they had coverage.
But that’s not the case in California, where stories abound of people who are either underinsured or don’t have any coverage at all.
Beyond the human tragedy, the California wildfires provide critical lessons that policy makers in Canada must grasp and respond to with urgency. The risk of lethal wildfire is only growing, so it is imperative we act now, together, to reduce that risk and protect Canadians and our communities.
Between 2003 and 2014, insured losses from wildfires in Canada averaged $84 million a year. Over the past decade, these insurance losses surged to $706 million annually. We’re seeing even larger annual increases in damage caused by flooding. Last year, insured losses from severe weather events hit a historic $8.5 billion and hundreds of thousands of Canadians were affected.
The severe weather events will continue to intensify. They are putting lives and finances at risk. More needs to be done to prepare and protect Canadians and their communities.
Canadian insurers have been calling on governments to invest in disaster resiliency measures for more than a decade. That means no longer building homes and businesses in high-risk wildfire and flood zones, investing in FireSmart initiatives, such a using fire resistant
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