A man attempts to remove a fallen tree branch as it blocks a sidewalk following an accumulation of freezing rain in Montreal, April 5, 2023.Graham Hughes
Brodie Ramin is a physician, author and assistant professor at the University of Ottawa. His latest book is Written in Blood: Lessons on Prevention from a Risky World.
We live in the north but still act surprised when it snows.
Every year Canadians shake their heads in dismay as our infrastructure collapses under the pressure of our pounding winters. The ice storm of April, 2023, knocked out power for 1.3 million customers in Ontario and Quebec. Roads froze, trees snapped under the weight of ice, and entire communities were plunged into darkness for days. Hospitals, shelters and warming centres were overwhelmed.
This past February, a severe mid-winter thaw flooded homes and overwhelmed drainage systems, inflicting more than $260-million in insured damage across Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces. A month later, an ice storm left more than 300,000 Ontario homes without electricity, while hundreds of thousands more across central and Eastern Canada faced rolling outages.
These are not anomalies; they are repeated tests of our readiness. And we keep failing.
Many disasters don’t stem from unpredictable chaos, but from repeated, preventable failure. James Reason called this the Swiss cheese model of disaster: When weaknesses in different layers of a system line up, a single threat can trigger cascading collapse.
Canadian infrastructure is that Swiss cheese. Aging power lines, vulnerable trees, brittle building envelopes, under-resourced shelters, overwhelmed first responders: Each is a weakness in our defences. When freezing rain or deep cold strikes, the gaps align: Power is lost, people freeze and preventable tragedies unfold. The 2023 blackout alone caused multiple deaths, including from carbon monoxide poisoning, as residents turned to unsafe heating methods.
The ice storm was another reminder that the era of climate calm is over. Our weather is becoming more volatile, and the infrastructure built for yesterday’s winters can no longer carry tomorrow’s loads. Municipalities like Montreal and Toronto struggle with outdated grids and strained social services. In Calgary and Winnipeg, recent cold snaps revealed heating failures in aging apartments and gaps in transit resilience. At the same time, the push for the electrification of transport and heating infrastructure is pushing up demand for electricity.
In a country that prides itself on public order, universal health care and civic planning, the reality is bleak: We are treating winter storms like unexpected guests instead of guaranteed arrivals. And the most vulnerable – seniors, low-income residents, those without housing – are hit hardest every time.
A person clears snow from around a car during a snowstorm in Montreal, Feb. 16, 2025.Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press
If this sounds like a systems failure, that’s because it is. But solutions exist, if we’re willing to learn from other sectors.
In aviation, nuclear energy, and air traffic control – industries that are categorized as high-reliability organizations (HROs) – risk is constant and failure can be catastrophic. These industries don’t avoid accidents because they’re lucky; they avoid them because they plan like they’re unlucky. They never forget to be afraid, maintaining a continual state of alertness, humility and redundancy. They assume things will go wrong, and build in layers of defence to catch errors before they cascade.
Rather than scrambling to respond after disaster hits, a prevention-focused Canada would act in advance to reinforce critical systems. That means upgrading our power infrastructure and burying vulnerable electrical lines where feasible. It means retrofitting older housing stock with better insulation, energy-efficient windows, and improved ventilation. Municipalities must expand tree-trimming programs to protect power lines and invest in weather-hardened grid technologies. Emergency shelters should be equipped with scalable heating systems and reliable backup power sources. And just as importantly, we must train emergency response teams not only to act when crisis strikes, but to anticipate where and when failures are most likely to occur.
This is more than disaster response. It is public health, social equity and good governance.
The price of inaction is mounting. Winter events now routinely cause more than $100-million in insured damage per storm. And that doesn’t include the unquantifiable costs: missed work, mental-health tolls, respiratory illness from cold exposure and the erosion of public trust. Pro-active investment saves money, with yields estimated at $13 to $15 for every dollar invested in climate adaptation.
Like any chronic condition, systemic fragility doesn’t resolve on its own. Ignoring the wear and tear on Canada’s infrastructure is like ignoring chest pain in a patient with heart disease. As a prevention-focused physician, I see this pattern everywhere: We respond to failure, rather than prevent it. But vigilance is a practice, not a one-time fix. If this winter feels harsh, it’s not because we were unlucky. It’s because we failed to build for it.