Natural disasters and emergencies

• Proportion of households that report having been affected by a natural disaster or extreme weather event in the last 12 months.
• Frequency of Canadian disasters and emergencies caused by natural hazards.

Each of the components of this indicator is measured separately.

Proportion of households that report having been affected by a natural disaster or extreme weather event in the last 12 months

This component of the indicator is measured in the Households and the Environment Survey (HES).

In the 2023 HES, survey respondents are asked:

In the past 12 months, has your household been affected by an extreme weather event or natural disaster?

Include events such as flooding, wind storms, tornadoes, wild fires, winter storms, blizzards, hurricanes, extreme smoke, prolonged poor air quality, earthquakes, and similar types of events.

• Yes
• No
• Don't know

Where did you experience this?
If you have been affected by more than one event, report for the most recent event.

• Primary residence
• Secondary residence
• Both primary and secondary residences
• Somewhere else in Canada
• Somewhere else outside of Canada

What type of event was it?

• Heavy rain
• River flooding
• Storm
• Strong winds
• Winter storm, blizzard, or ice storm
• Extreme cold
• Extreme heat
• Hurricane
• Tornado
• Poor air quality (e.g., smoke or smog)
• Forest fire, wildfire, or grass fire
• Landslides, avalanche, or sinkhole
• Earthquake
• Other

How were you/your household affected by the event?

• Lost power for a short period of time (less than 24 hours)
• Lost power for a long period of time (one day or longer)
• Had to throw out food
• Water damage
• Some damage to house
• Complete loss of house
• Poor air quality
• Road closures (e.g., unable to go to the store)
• Interruption to drinking water
• Property flooded
• Damage to family vehicles
• Household member injuries or killed by weather event
• Other

Frequency of Canadian disasters and emergencies caused by natural hazards

Data on the frequency of significant Canadian events caused by  natural hazards come from the Canadian Disaster Database (CDD), which is managed by Public Safety Canada. The CDD tracks significant events that conform to the Emergency Management Framework for Canada's definition of a disaster, or meets one or more of the following criteria:

• 10 or more people killed
• 100 or more people affected/injured/infected/evacuated or homeless
• an appeal for national/international assistance
• historical significance
• significant damage/interruption of normal processes such that the community affected cannot recover on its own.

This CDD was developed and is maintained by Public Safety Canada, and serves as a convenient, but secondary source of information regarding events which have impacted Canada or Canadians. The information contained in the database is sourced from a variety of data sources, including federal institutions, provincial and territorial governments, non-governmental organizations, and publicly available data sources.

The CDD may not be suitable for comparative analysis because of differences in jurisdictional responsibilities, the type of data that is available, and how it is collected and used over time.

There is currently no standardized guideline for collecting cost and loss data. Financial data can take multiple years to finalize, and estimates are sometimes provided in the interest of keeping the database current. Information for more recent events should be considered preliminary, possibly incomplete, and subject to change.  For example, the Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements (DFAA) program provides a five-year limit on claim settlement to impacted provinces (not withstanding extensions).

To reduce subjectivity for this indicator, events of 'historical significance' which do not meet the criteria for deaths, impacted people, or an appeal for national/international assistance have been removed. Only events involving natural hazards have been included.

The CDD does not reflect real time data. It shares information on events that have fully concluded to ensure that the data reflects the event appropriately (i.e., insurance and disaster recovery payment information is available). For this reason, events for which the costs and/or other impacts have not been fully recorded contribute to a delay in making them available through the CDD.

Proportion of households that report having been affected by a natural disaster or extreme weather event in the last 12 months

• Statistics Canada: Households and the Environment Survey (HES)
• Data from the 2023 HES are not yet available.

Frequency of Canadian events caused by natural hazards

• Public Safety Canada: Canadian Disaster Database (CDD)

• Canadian Disaster Database (geospatial view)

• Analysis from the 2023 Households and the Environment Survey (HES) will be available here when it is published.
• Study: Insights into the impact of extreme weather trends in Canada on homeowners insurance profitability and consumers (The Daily, May 15, 2024)

Data on household emergencies and disasters were previously collected in the one-time 2014 Survey of Emergency Preparedness and Resilience (SEPR). The questions asked in that survey were different from the questions shown above from the 2023 HES and as such the resulting data are not directly comparable. Data products from the 2014 SEPR are available at the following page: Related products - Survey of Emergency Preparedness and Resilience in Canada.