🍁 civid v1

Purpose and scope

• The bill requires the federal Minister of the Environment to develop a national strategy to help key stakeholders obtain information needed to forecast floods and droughts.
• It establishes strategy and reporting duties; it does not itself establish a national forecasting service.

Developing the strategy

• The Environment Minister must collaborate with the ministers responsible for agriculture, infrastructure, natural resources, and public safety and emergency preparedness.
• The minister must consult provincial and municipal representatives, Indigenous governing bodies, universities, civil society and industry, including insurers.
• The strategy must assess:
  • The need for and benefits of national coordination, new investment and novel forecasting technologies.
  • The need for modelling to support flood and drought forecasting.
  • Opportunities to develop national forecasting that meets stakeholders’ short- and long-term information needs, including current and future flood-plain delineation.
• It must also address federal measures responding to those assessments, including preparation of a proposal for a cooperative national hydrological and water-resources forecasting service and system, based on the federal-provincial model of the National Hydrometric Program.

Reporting and deadlines

• Within two years after the Act comes into force, the minister must prepare a report setting out the strategy. It must be tabled in each House of Parliament within the first 15 sitting days after completion.
• Within five years after the strategy report is tabled, the minister must prepare, after consultation, a report on the strategy’s effectiveness, including conclusions and recommendations. It must also be tabled within the first 15 sitting days after completion.
• Each report must be published on a Government of Canada website within 10 business days after it has been tabled in both Houses.

Existing law and costs

• The provided text does not amend existing legislation or specify funding or costs. It requires an assessment of new investment, but does not itself authorize a specific expenditure.