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Premiers highlight emergency preparedness at Council of the Federation conference

July 26, 2024, Canada — Premiers from across Canada came away from the Council of the Federation conference in Nova Scotia with a renewed focus on emergency preparedness and response.

The three-days of meetings included conversations examining how to increase collaboration between provinces and territories in the face of record-breaking numbers of wildfires, floods, and droughts in recent years.

“It’s not lost on us that emergency preparedness for natural disasters is more important than ever,” Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston said in his closing remarks on the final day of the Council of the Federation conference.

Discussions centred on the need for additional federal government support, including ensuring the Canadian Armed Forces remain sufficiently resourced to provide aide, greater transparency and flexibility in disaster mitigation funding, and maintaining the current 90 per cent federal 10 per cent provincial or territorial investment for the largest scale disaster relief projects, the council said in their press release.

“There’s a number of premiers around the table today battling forest fires back home. Of course here in this province we had the tragic flash flooding death just last week,” Houston said in a statement on the second day of meetings.

There are currently 960 active fires in the country, with 394 of them being listed as out of control, reported the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre Inc.