Madam Speaker, in November 2023, I rose to speak to the bill introduced by my colleague, the chair of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development and member for Lac-Saint-Louis, with whom I have the great pleasure of working on that committee.

As I said at the time, the Bloc Québécois does not have any objections as to the content of the bill. I pointed out that it is important to remember that all of the tools already exist and have been implemented in Quebec. I also pointed out that there was a problem that seemed fundamental to me, namely that better coordination was needed among the existing organizations. I am talking about the organizations responsible for handling information related to weather events that result in major flooding and occasional or prolonged drought.

Droughts and floods are natural phenomena, but we know that they are exacerbated by climate change and climate disruptions. In order for us to adapt to climate change impacts, public authorities must come together and take action. They must rely on science to guide the government's decision-making in that area. This means making relevant information available to the public and all stakeholders, which is consistent with this bill.

The committee conducted its study, which went well. It was unanimous. Now, I want to get back to what is happening in Quebec. I am going to talk a bit about climate change, which will certainly come as no surprise to anyone.

Quebec has experienced numerous floods in recent decades, and the socio-economic costs associated with them have been steadily increasing. Philippe Gachon is a professor and holder of the UQAM research chair on hydrometeorological risks related to climate change. He has studied these phenomena extensively and is working to determine why rivers overflow and the future risks. Before there is a flood, rivers overflow from spring flooding, and in some cases, the damage can be considerable.

Let us talk about the Ottawa River, which is near Parliament Hill. In 2017, flood levels on the Ottawa River not only reached areas with just a 1% chance of being flooded at the time, but they exceeded them by a significant amount on two occasions.

The ink was not even dry on the report prepared in the aftermath when flooding returned in the spring of 2019. The Ottawa River once again flooded the streets of Rigaud in a disaster that lasted for more than 42 consecutive days. For the 2019 spring flood alone, the Insurance Bureau of Canada pegged the damage at $127 million. Across southern Quebec, more than 10,000 people had to leave their homes.

Professor Gachon's team is working with Environment Canada software that is used to prepare short- and medium-term weather forecasts. This team is attempting to create a version that can make long-term predictions about the influence of future disruptions at specific locations, while observing the dynamics at work in the watersheds of Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes. The knowledge that this professor is building would surely be worth sharing to maximize the chances of achieving the bill's objectives.

I am not going to reel off a lot of data or statistics on the increasing number of floods or droughts. We know that these events are increasingly costly and increasingly devastating.

However, I would like to point out that no one is immune to the climate disruptions wreaking havoc on our communities, no matter their geographic location. Most importantly, these disruptions are devastating our agricultural economies. When we had concerns about the benefits of Bill C‑317, I have to say that we did not get enough answers, so we are choosing to be optimistic about this initiative.

I will close by quoting Professor Emeritus René Laprise of UQAM, who spoke in 2019 to the Québec Science magazine about future risks and what Quebec might look like in 2050. He said, and I quote:

The models show that there will be more droughts and more flooding. It seems counterintuitive, but we have to understand that it is the distribution of precipitation in the weather that will change. For long periods, there will be no rain. In a hotter atmosphere, the water vapour will accumulate more, then all of the water will fall all at once. That is why we predict that there will be more floods—with the overflow problems that entails.

...mean sea level will rise by roughly 15 cm. At first glance, that is not a lot, but those 15 cm will add to the reduced ice cover on the St. Lawrence and the potential for more violent storms. This combination of factors will accelerate coastal erosion. The phenomenon is already visible on the shores of the Lower St. Lawrence and the Gaspé peninsula [and the Magdalen Islands].

The gravity of these phenomena deserves our attention. Quebec already has a good structure. I invite the federal government to reflect on the underlying causes of these costly and dramatic changes.

Monique Pauzé

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