Ottawa looks to launch national flood insurance program within 12 months

The federal government says the plan is to implement a long-promised national flood insurance program sometime next year, setting aside $15 million in the 2025-26 fiscal year in Tuesday’s budget.

“This is part of a much wider plan, one where we’re looking at how do we do proper mitigation as well,” Emergency Preparedness Minister Harjit Sajjan said before the Liberal caucus meeting Wednesday.

He pointed to cases where flood risk data was not available in the past or where risks have changed, but people have already bought or built homes in areas now under threat and face significant or impossible costs to insure their homes in case of flooding.

“We want to make sure that they are supported. But at the same time, where there is flooding, that we don’t start building on places where there’s going to be a potential flooding as well,” he said.

As part of the plans for a national flood insurance program, the federal government is working with the provinces and territories to produce updated flood mapping of the country.

This mapping will be essential in determining what existing properties exist in hard-to-insure, high-risk areas. Ottawa aims to work with the provinces and territories on finding ways to subsidize these future insurance policies and offer low-cost flood insurance within the next 12 months.

The program will be run through a subsidiary of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), the budget document said.

“So we’re glad that the budget spelled out, finally, the timeline that the end is near. We’re actually going to have flood insurance available to those about 1.5 million homeowners across the country by ideally next summer,” Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC) vice president Craig Stewart said in an interview