Yesterday afternoon, IBC appeared before a special hearing of the House of Commons Finance Committee to discuss our proposal to reduce future disaster losses. The hearing was well received by the many Liberal and Alliance members of parliament in attendance. We pressed the Committee members to support IBC’s three part plan: Encourage the federal Government to direct recently announced infrastructure funds to advance projects to improve Canadian’s resilience to extreme events; to encourage the Government to expand the current disaster funding arrangement with the provinces to add mitigation projects; and, to advocate a national program to build a culture of disaster preparedness.

All of the other presentations by expert witnesses provided strong endorsement for our proposal. This included Roger Nicolet (who lead the study of the 1996 Saguenay flood and 1998 ice storm), Emergency Preparedness Canada, the mayor of Houston British Columbia, the former head of the Canadian weather service, and the head of Conservation Ontario. These are a few of the many people and organizations who are now actively speaking out in support of our proposal, and we look to the influential Finance Committee to lend its support in the weeks ahead. The hearing was broadly covered in the French language press, and the coverage was consistently favourable. This was a very satisfying session demonstrating IBC’s capacity to secure broad-based support and political commitment to act to resolve our priority issues.

George D. Anderson
President and CEO

Staff contact: Paul Kovacs, Senior VP and Mark Yakabuski, VP