Submission to the Government of Canada on Strengthening Federal Leadership in Emergency Management
Submitted to Public Safety Canada
The Tourism Industry Association of Canada (TIAC) appreciates the opportunity to provide input to the Government of Canada’s consultation on strengthening federal leadership in the Canadian emergency management system. Given its nationwide economic and community impact, Canada’s tourism industry represents a strategic component of the country’s emergency management ecosystem and overall emergency preparedness framework.
Canada’s tourism sector supports over 265,000 businesses and a workforce of over 2 million people. In 2024, tourism generated $130 billion in economic activity and contributed $50.6 billion to Canada’s GDP. Tourism businesses and assets represent critical economic infrastructure in many communities. The COVID-19 pandemic, wildfires across the country, floods in Nova Scotia, and hurricanes in Atlantic Canada demonstrated how quickly visitor economies can contract, particularly in rural and Indigenous communities where tourism is a primary employer.
1. Federal Leadership and Coordination
1.1. What should the federal government's role in emergency management look like in the future?
In Canada, there are well-define roles and responsibilities for communication, advisories, and planning during weather- and climate-related emergencies that are shared among several local, provincial and federal agencies. Unfortunately, a clear and central leadership role around economic stabilization is largely missing from emergency mitigation, planning, response and recovery efforts. For tourism operators and destination organizations, this fragmentation results in demand uncertainty and, often, a delayed economic response— amplifying and prolonging recovery.
Through Public Safety Canada’s federal leadership role in emergency management coordination, the Government of Canada should work collaboratively with provinces, territories, Indigenous partners, and relevant departments to strengthen consistent, pre-established federal–provincial protocols related to travel advisories, border measures, and crisis communications. These frameworks should meaningfully integrate tourism sector impacts and operational realities, ensuring that affected businesses and tourism-dependent communities are considered in planning and decision-making, while reinforcing Canada’s reputation as a safe, well-managed, and reliable destination.
1.2. How could the federal government strengthen its role in emergency management?
The federal government should shift further from reactive disaster assistance toward proactive mitigation and continuity planning. Disaster assistance costs have risen significantly over the past decade, largely due to climate-related events. Expanding investments under the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund in high-traffic tourism corridors — including wildfire-prone national parks and flood-exposed coastal communities — would protect critical infrastructure and reduce long-term liabilities. Priority should be given to infrastructure serving both residents and visitors, such as airports, highways, ferries, park facilities, and digital connectivity, as disruption has compounding impacts.
1.3. What tools or structures could improve coordination before and during emergencies?
Communities with tourism-driven economies frequently experience seasonal population surges that can double or triple local demand, significantly complicating evacuation logistics, emergency communications, and evacuee care planning. Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), in collaboration with Public Safety Canada, provinces, territories, and regional tourism and hospitality partners, should lead the development of an integrated technology-enabled modelling dataset that combines federal hazard forecasting with real-time and seasonal tourism mobility, accommodation capacity, and visitation data.
Supported by provincial and regional tourism and hospitality data inputs, such a platform would enable more immediate and informed planning — strengthening evacuation modelling, shelter and accommodation capacity planning, and coordinated communications. It would also support tourism operators in making evidence-based operational decisions, while improving national readiness and reducing confusion, disruption, and reputational risk during emergencies.
2. Building Capacity and Partnerships
2.1. How should federal programs and capabilities evolve to address current and emerging risks?
Tourism is highly climate sensitive. Wildfires have affected visitation across Canada, while extreme storms increasingly threaten coastal destinations. Aligning emergency management investments with the National Adaptation Strategy would safeguard transportation corridors, waterfronts, and natural assets that underpin visitor demand. Because tourism depends heavily on public assets — national parks, coastlines, forests, and cultural sites — resilience investments in these shared assets are direct economic protection measures. Increasing the share of funding directed toward prevention rather than recovery would reduce volatility in tourism-dependent regions. Tourism assets should be explicitly eligible for resilience funding, with criteria that recognize seasonal population surges and the significance of visitor-based revenue.
2.2. What approaches could strengthen local capacity and preparedness?
Many tourism-intensive municipalities and Indigenous communities lack emergency planning resources tailored to visitor populations, seasonal workforce surges, and major events. Dedicated funding for destination-level preparedness would improve evacuation planning, communications, and business continuity.
The Tourism Industry Association of Canada (TIAC), in partnership with the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED), has initiated the development of a national tourism emergency preparedness knowledge hub and training certification program. This initiative responds directly to the need for dedicated preparedness resources tailored to tourism-intensive communities. The knowledge hub is designed to centralize practical tools, hazard information, and response planning guidance so that businesses and destinations can integrate risk data into community and enterprise continuity plans. A structured training and certification program will further professionalize emergency preparedness within the tourism sector, strengthening readiness across regions.
TIAC’s preparedness initiative places particular emphasis on engagement with Indigenous tourism operators and community representatives. Indigenous participation is essential to ensure that tools, templates, and training resources reflect community realities, traditional knowledge, and local governance structures. Meaningful co-development will help ensure that resulting resources are practical, culturally grounded, and aligned with reconciliation priorities. Federal government partnerships with Indigenous communities can further strengthen resilience for tourism, supporting economic reconciliation objectives.
2.3. What role can the federal government play in fostering public–private collaboration and community resilience?
Sector-led initiatives such as TIAC’s national tourism emergency preparedness knowledge hub demonstrate the private sector’s willingness to co-invest in resilience.
What is lacking is consistent guidance across the country on how to craft key messages in such a way that contextualizes risk and supports tourism sector needs. Following major wildfire and storm events, localized impacts have sometimes been erroneously perceived internationally as nationwide risk This has led to a hinderance in demand from international visitors in parts of the country where no real impacts are being experienced. Collaboration with Public Safety, Destination Canada and destination marketing organizations on domestic and international crisis communications is therefore essential.
Moreover, federal cost-sharing programs, tax measures, or low-interest resilience financing would accelerate the adoption of fire-smarting, floodproofing, and climate adaptation measures. Accelerated capital cost allowances could further support uptake.
3. Enhancing Risk Awareness and Public Readiness
3.1. What can the federal government do to improve risk communication and individual preparedness?
The federal government can enhance unified, multilingual emergency messaging that reflects the needs of international visitors unfamiliar with Canada’s geography or alert systems. Expanding visibility of regional public alerting systems and Canada’s Alert Ready across airports, national parks, accommodations, and digital booking platforms would strengthen situational awareness. Partnerships with airlines and major travel booking platforms could further amplify regionally precise advisories in real time.
3.2. How can data, technology, and research be leveraged?
While several effective tools currently exist, it is important to ensure that tourism-specific data sets are included in centralized, publicly accessible disaster-impact dashboards to improve broader situational awareness. Incorporating tourism metrics such as visitation, occupancy, and employment impacts in emergency management data sets improves transparency and enable operators and communities to plan proactively, reducing volatility and shortening recovery time.
3.3. What information would make your community better prepared?
Real-time visitor mobility data and economic impact modelling of disaster scenarios in tourism-supported communities would further support peak-season evacuation planning while safeguarding residents and visitors.