More than a million Canadian homeowners could face a loss of equity unless Parliament acts to address rising flood insurance costs, the Commons environment committee was told. Experts said delays by the Department of Public Safety on long-promised initiatives are leaving taxpayers exposed to disaster relief expenses.Blacklock's Reporter said Blair Feltmate, head of the University of Waterloo’s Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation, told MPs that residents at risk could lose their mortgages if reforms are not implemented. He called basement flooding “the number one cost of climate change in Canada,” with individual homeowners’ expenses averaging $54,000.“In Québec, in communities where flood risk exceeds 5% in a given year, Desjardins has stopped renewing mortgages,” Feltmate said. “This trend will continue across Canada if we don’t get ahead of the curve.” He added that 10% of Canada’s housing stock — roughly 1.5 million homes — is now effectively uninsurable for flood risk, leaving homeowners without coverage for their largest financial investment..The federal Task Force on Flood Insurance in a 2022 report recommended a mandatory $900-a-year flood insurance program for at-risk homeowners to reduce reliance on ad hoc disaster aid. Public Safety told the Senate last month that a national flood insurance plan remains a cabinet priority, but the program has been under review since 2017.Feltmate criticized delays, noting a promised keyword-searchable website for flood mapping has yet to be launched. “Canada has to swallow some very tough medicine on flood risk mapping,” he said. “People like flood risk maps until they have them, and then they find out their community is now designated in a flood zone. Property values drop, and people go apoplectic.”He warned that Canada could face a situation similar to California, where insurers withdrew policies after state-mandated rate cuts in 1988. “We are not immune to a California-style situation,” Feltmate said. “Climate change is here to stay. If we think weather is extreme now, just hold on because it’s going to get a lot worse going forward.”
