The government also earmarked $257.6-million to boost aerial wildfire fighting capacity.Jesse Winter/The Globe and Mail
The federal budget is proposing funding to create a new National Public Alerting System model – one of several measures related to emergency management.
Tabled on Tuesday, the budget allocates $55.4-million over four years, starting in 2026-27, to Public Safety to support the proposal. After that, the budget says, the government will provide $13.4-million a year on a continual basis.
Also known as Alert Ready, the system is a collaboration between federal, provincial and territorial governments and industry partners. It sends Canadians critical alerts via television, radio and cellphones, including for natural disasters, extreme weather, security threats and child abductions.
The Mass Casualty Commission, which examined the 2020 Nova Scotia mass shooting, made recommendations to change the system, including a comprehensive review to see if and how it can be reformed.
The RCMP received heated criticism for not using the system during the shooting. At the time, it had to go through the provincial emergency response organization to issue an alert.
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The budget said the proposed actions “respond to the Commission’s recommendations on public alerting.”
Ottawa is also allocating $257.6-million to Natural Resources to lease four aircraft, boosting provincial and territorial aerial wildfire fighting capacity.
It amounts to $64-million a year from 2026-27 to 2029-30.
“Wildfire seasons in Canada are becoming more severe and are having lasting impacts on the lives of Canadians,” the budget said.
“Protecting our communities from these devastating wildfires requires bold approaches and committed, co-ordinated action from all levels of government.”
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This year’s wildfire season was the second worst on record, with Ottawa reporting more than 6,000 wildfires across nearly every province and territory. More than 8.3 million hectares were burned.
In September, NDP MP Gord Johns urged the federal government to establish sovereign aerial firefighting capacity in the budget.
“Without a national air tanker fleet, provinces are left to shoulder the cost of aviation resources, with no guarantee they will be available when and where they are needed most,” he wrote in a letter to Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne.
Ottawa has also committed to modernizing the Meteorological Service of Canada, which provides weather information. It is looking to spend $2.7-billion over nine years, starting in 2025-26, with $57.4-million in remaining amortization. The funding would replace the service’s supercomputer system, known as the High Performance Computing solution.
It “is the only system in Canada capable of running the models required to produce weather forecasts, alerts, warnings, and climate projections,” the budget said.
The funding would also implement backup systems in a separate location and modernize the solution’s operations, the budget said.
The government also plans to consult federally regulated property and casualty insurers on ways to ensure the stability of Canada’s insurance sector in the event of an extreme earthquake.