Climate Change and Communities in Canada, Including First Nations, Métis and Inuit Communities

Remember from Grade 8

In Grade 8 Water Systems you learned about First Nations, Métis and Inuit relationships with water, drinking water advisories, and how thinner sea ice makes travel less safe in the North. This lesson looks at all kinds of communities in Canada, including First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities, and asks a Grade 9 question: how do we assess who is affected by climate change, how much, and why?

When learning about any community, use sources created by or with that community where you can, use the names communities use for themselves, and remember that First Nations, Métis and Inuit are distinct peoples with many different nations and communities.

Let's start with a road made of ice

In Ontario's Far North, many First Nations communities have no year-round road. For most of the year, people and supplies travel by small plane. In winter, crews build winter roads across frozen muskeg, lakes and rivers, so trucks can bring in fuel, building materials and food at much lower cost than by air.

As winters get warmer, the season when these roads are safe is often shorter and less predictable. When roads open late or close early, supplies have to be flown in at a higher cost, and building projects can be delayed. A change in climate becomes a change in the price of groceries and the timing of a new school.

Why are some communities affected more?

Scientists and community planners assess impacts using three ideas:

• Exposure: where is the community, and what hazards does it face? Northern communities face the fastest warming; coastal communities face erosion and sea-level rise; communities on floodplains face floods; forest communities face wildfires.
• Sensitivity: how much does the community depend on things that are changing? Communities that rely on sea ice or winter roads for travel, or on fish, caribou or wild rice for food, are more sensitive.
• Adaptive capacity: what resources, infrastructure, health services, knowledge and decision-making power does it have to respond?

Many First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities face high exposure (northern and remote locations, fast warming) and high sensitivity (close, everyday relationships with land and water for food, culture, health and language). At the same time, they hold deep knowledge of local environments that is a great strength for adapting. Their adaptive capacity has often been limited by colonial policies, such as decisions made by governments about where some communities were located and how they are funded. This is why many Indigenous leaders say that self-determination, communities making their own decisions, is central to climate action.

Impacts on Inuit communities and the North

• Sea ice is the "highway" for travel between communities and to hunting areas for much of the year. Thinner ice that forms later and breaks up earlier, and weather that is harder to predict, make travel more dangerous and harvesting more difficult. Elders' knowledge of safe ice routes must be combined with new observations as conditions change.
• Permafrost thaw damages houses, roads, water and sewage pipes, and airstrips that were built on frozen ground.
• Coastal erosion: with less sea ice to protect shorelines from storm waves, some coastlines are eroding quickly. The Inuvialuit community of Tuktoyaktuk on the Beaufort Sea coast in the Northwest Territories is one well-known example.
• Food security: changes in ice, snow and animal movements affect access to country food such as seal, caribou and Arctic char. Store-bought food in the North is very expensive.

Inuk leader Sheila Watt-Cloutier has spent decades explaining these impacts to the world, describing Inuit rights to culture and a safe environment as "the right to be cold".

Impacts on First Nations communities in Ontario

• Winter roads: shorter, less reliable seasons raise costs for fuel, food and building supplies in remote communities.
• Flooding: Kashechewan First Nation, on the Albany River near James Bay, has had to evacuate many times because of spring flooding caused by ice jams on the river.
• Wildfires and smoke: longer fire seasons threaten remote communities with evacuation. In 2021, wildfires in northwestern Ontario led to evacuations of several First Nations, including Pikangikum and Poplar Hill.
• Water and harvesting: changes in water levels, temperature and timing affect fish, wild rice (manoomin), moose and berries that are important for food, culture and ceremonies.

Impacts on Métis communities

Métis communities in Ontario and across the Métis Homeland have a long tradition of harvesting: hunting, fishing, trapping and gathering. Harvesters report changes in animal movements, water levels, ice conditions and the timing of plants. These changes affect food, income and the passing on of knowledge between generations. Métis governments and organizations, including the Métis Nation of Ontario, have worked with their citizens to record these observations and plan for adaptation.

Impacts on other communities in Canada

• Cities: heat waves are especially dangerous for older adults, people with health conditions and people without air conditioning or shade; paved areas create urban heat islands. In 2021, an extreme "heat dome" in British Columbia was linked to more than 600 deaths. Heavy rainstorms overwhelm sewers and flood basements.
• Smoke: wildfire smoke can travel thousands of kilometres. In June 2023, smoke from Quebec and Ontario fires gave Toronto and Ottawa some of the worst air quality readings ever recorded there.
• Farming communities: droughts, floods and new pests affect harvests and incomes.
• Coastal communities in Atlantic Canada and British Columbia: sea-level rise, storm surges and erosion.
• Health: Lyme disease spreading with ticks; stress and grief about environmental change, which researchers have documented in northern communities as well as among young people across Canada.

Communities responding

Communities are not just affected; they are leading:

• SmartICE, an Inuit-led enterprise that started in Nunatsiavut (Labrador), combines sea-ice thickness sensors with Inuit knowledge to help people plan safer travel routes.
• Indigenous Guardians programs employ community members to monitor land, water and wildlife, combining Indigenous knowledge and science.
• Wataynikaneyap Power, a transmission project majority-owned by First Nations in northwestern Ontario, is connecting remote First Nations to the provincial power grid so they rely less on diesel generators, which are expensive and polluting. Pikangikum was the first community connected, in 2018.
• Cities plant trees, open cooling centres, build flood-resistant infrastructure and create heat-alert systems.
• Farmers test drought-tolerant crops and soil practices that hold more water (Lesson 15).