Natural Hazards Governance in Canada

Abstract

The responsibility for hazard governance in Canada is indirectly determined by the division of subjects in the Constitution Act of 1867. This is because emergency management is not a distinct constitutional subject, and therefore it is a matter of assessing which subjects are most related to the practices of emergency management. As a result of this uncertainty both the provincial and federal governments have emergency management legislation. The various provincial legislation and the federal Emergencies Act of 1988 are primarily focused on providing for the use of extraordinary powers as part of crisis response. The federal Emergency Management Act 2008 does take a more comprehensive approach that includes hazard mitigation, but its reach only extends to federal departments. The governance tools most applicable to hazard management, such as land-use planning and zoning, are normally found within the Provinces’ planning or municipal legislation. The planning legislation empowers local authorities to manage development and its interaction with the natural environment. However, these powers are seldom directed towards hazard mitigation. If there is a reference to natural hazards in the planning legislation it is usually to specific risks, such as flooding or slope failure, that are spatially bounded risks to development. This separation of hazard governance in the legislation is reflected in local government practices. In most provinces emergency managers are not required by their respective legislation to incorporate hazard mitigation into community emergency programs. The planning legislation, however, seldom extends the community planner’s mandate for mitigation beyond the concerns for safe building sites and the separation of incompatible land uses. The responsibility to prevent human development from interacting with the extremes of the natural environment, or more succinctly “hazard governance,” is not clearly assigned in Canada.