Canada: country profile

01Overview

Canada enters 2027 with electricity that is largely non-emitting, an oil and gas sector that still produced 30% of national emissions in 2024, a freshwater endowment that is vast in total but thin where people live, and a hazard regime in which wildfire, hail, flood and ice storms now set the pace of losses. National emissions were 685 Mt CO₂e in 2024, 10.3% below 2005 and almost unchanged on 2023 [1]. Insured catastrophe losses reached a record C$9.1 billion in 2024, then C$2.4 billion in 2025, a year with 17 declared catastrophes [2]. This Baseline Edition fixes the reference state for Canada’s water, energy, food, health and biodiversity systems, maps the dependencies through which shocks travel between them, and sets the questions the first operational edition will answer with Foundry evidence in Q1 2027. It ranks nothing and decides nothing. It establishes where the evidence stands, what remains uncertain and what to watch.

02At a glance

population, 2025

41.5 million

land area

8.79 million km²

of the world’s forests

≈9 %

electricity from non-emitting sources

≈83 %

of world potash output

≈⅓

health spending, 2024

12.4 % GDP

03Key findings

04Domain reading

Each of the twelve coupled domains is read in words, not scored. The reading states where the baseline evidence points; the coupling column names the dependency that carries risk into other systems.

05Sector screen

All sixteen sectors are screened on the same grammar, so that later editions can say what changed. The evidence column describes coverage of the baseline evidence, not the performance of the sector.

06System couplings

The Canada matrix types the twenty couplings between the five core systems. Strengths are Nexus estimates from the cited evidence and analogue events; they set the starting graph that the Q1 2027 Foundry cut will test.

07Risk objects

Four risk objects open the portfolio. Order carries no rank. Each is read across driver, exposure, vulnerability, capacity, cascade and consequence; loss metrics are added only where they can be modelled.

• Compound wildfire, smoke and heat season

  Reported EQL 3

  Driver

  longer fire seasons; heat; drought

  Exposure

  communities at the wildland–urban edge; city populations under smoke

  Vulnerability

  older adults, outdoor workers, people with chronic illness; single-access towns

  Capacity

  interagency fire mutual aid; public alerting; clean-air spaces

  Cascade

  CLI → BIO → HLT → ENE cooling load

  Horizon

  seasonal · 1 and 5 years

• Multi-year drought in western Canada

  Inferred EQL 3

  Driver

  low snowpack; heat; low summer flows

  Exposure

  Prairie agriculture; western hydro; municipal supply

  Vulnerability

  rain-fed farms; reservoir-limited systems

  Capacity

  drought monitoring; crop insurance; interties and imports

  Cascade

  WAT → ENE → FOO → TRD

  Horizon

  1–3 years

• Pluvial and riverine flooding in cities and corridors

  Reported EQL 4

  Driver

  extreme rainfall; atmospheric rivers; snowmelt

  Exposure

  basements and networks in large cities; rail and road links

  Vulnerability

  older drainage; high-risk households with thin cover [22]

  Capacity

  flood mapping; disaster assistance; insurance

  Cascade

  CLI → INF → FOO, FIN

  Horizon

  annual

• Trade-terms shock to integrated supply chains

  Inferred EQL 3

  Driver

  tariffs; the 2026 CUSMA joint review [35]

  Exposure

  autos, steel and aluminium, energy, agri-food

  Vulnerability

  concentration of export markets [12]

  Capacity

  trade diversification; fiscal measures

  Cascade

  TRD → FIN → households

  Horizon

  1–5 years

08Capability ladder

Existence is not readiness. Each of the fifteen capability functions is placed on the ladder by the strongest public evidence at baseline, from a policy listing to performance in real events.

09Scenario

Western heat, drought and fire year. A conditional statement under stated assumptions, never a prediction.

10Lenses

The baseline is read through each steward’s lens, then once as a whole. Each lens is a projection of reviewed findings, not a separate argument.

• Technical Truth

  GCRI · KEY T

  The evidence supports a coupled reading of Canadian risk. Losses are rising in trend and driven by frequency across perils; electricity, food and health share a dependence on water and heat. The evidence is strongest for losses and emissions, and weakest for digital and cross-system dependencies.

• Public Meaning

  GRF · KEY M

  For most Canadians risk arrives as a smoke-filled summer, a flooded basement or a higher premium. The baseline asks that these be read as one system, so that public debate is about the couplings, and about who carries the uninsured share.

• Capital Meaning

  GRA · KEY F

  Readiness implications only. A persistent protection gap, climate-risk supervision for federally regulated institutions [25] and scenario practice already piloted with the central bank [24] show where finance-readiness evidence will be needed. Nothing here is advice, a rating or an approval.

• Synthesis

  NEXUS

  Canada’s baseline is strong in observation and thin in tested cross-system capability. The 2027 programme should build the dependency graph first, test the western compound pathway, and measure the protection gap where it lands.

11Portfolio

Five initiatives, one project and one Universe mission candidate are proposed for admission at the Q1 2027 alignment. They are programme objects, no partner, funder or member is attached to them in this edition.

122027 agenda

Eight bounded questions open the 2027 National Agenda. Each comes from a baseline finding, names the initiative that will carry it and the first output due at the Q1 2027 cut.

1. A-01

   How would a multi-year drought combined with peak-electricity constraints affect agriculture, municipal water and food logistics in Western Canada?

   INI-CAN-WAT-01 · drought–energy–rail model

2. A-02

   How much health-system surge capacity remains during concurrent heat and wildfire smoke in large western and central cities?

   INI-CAN-HLT-02 · heat–smoke surge readiness

3. A-03

   How large is the protection gap by peril and province, and where does the uninsured share land?

   INI-CAN-FIN-03 · protection gap and fiscal exposure

4. A-04

   Through which sectors and provinces would a change in North American trade terms travel fastest?

   INI-CAN-TRD-04 · trade-shock transmission

5. A-05

   What is the condition of ecosystems outside protected areas, and how fast is it changing?

   INI-CAN-BIO-05 · ecosystem condition

6. A-06

   Where do rail, port and grid assets share failure modes on the western gateway?

   INI-CAN-WAT-01 · workstream

7. A-07

   How exposed are northern and remote communities to permafrost thaw and to fuel and food supply disruption?

   to be admitted in Q1 2027

8. A-08

   Which capabilities on the ladder have been tested in real events, and which are only documented?

   national capability register

13Coupled risk, applied response

14Evidence by system

15Sources

48 numbered sources, editor first. Open the reference list and the data appendix.

16Cite, corrections and licence

The full citation, BibTeX and RIS are on the edition page. Corrections go through the gateway and are logged in Annex C. Text is CC BY 4.0.

Cite

Saeed Valadbaygi, Chief Steward and Managing Editor, the Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI) (Ed.). (2026). Canada: country profile. In Canada 2026 [Draft under review]. GCRI for the Nexus Consortium.

Review copy. The DOI is issued at deposit. Text under CC BY 4.0.