Q&A: Canada’s emergency management minister on disaster prep

How does the federal government work with territories and provinces to prepare for emergencies like wildfires? How does Ottawa support communities before and after disasters?

With the end to another challenging wildfire season in sight, Cabin Radio sat down with Eleanor Olszewski, federal minister of emergency management and community resilience, to discuss support for communities facing fires and evacuations, and the Liberal government’s actions to address a warming climate that is making disasters worse.

Olszewski, who is also the MP for Edmonton Centre, was in the Northwest Territories to announce new funding for improvements at Inuvik’s Mike Zukbo Airport, and a new funding agreement for volunteer search and rescue services across Canada.

This interview was recorded on August 13, 2026. The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Claire McFarlane: You’ve come into this role at a time when natural disasters are becoming more frequent due to climate change. What are your areas of focus in helping communities prepare for disasters like these?

Eleanor Olszewski: There are a lot of different things that communities can do, and certainly community resilience is one – making sure that we have fire guards, and various other steps we can take to protect communities. With respect to, I think one of the most fundamentally important things, it’s just community preparation because what often happens is during the wildfire season, people are quite focused on wildfires and evacuations, and then when everything dies down again, even when there’s been an affected community and an after-action report, we sometimes see that things aren’t really followed up on. I think we need to always have top of mind, regardless of the jurisdictional level – whether it’s local, community, municipality, region, territory, province – that people make sure they’re adequately prepared for the next season.

What can that preparation look like and what are you doing to to help make sure those communities are prepared?

We do a lot of work as the federal government. Our role in disaster management really is, we’re the last people to be called upon. Emergencies are dealt with on a local basis first, and then when local capacity is exceeded, provinces and territories step in. When that capacity is exceeded, it’s at that point that the federal government, through a formal RFA [request for assistance] process, can offer assistance. That’s the formal mechanism to engage the federal government.

That said, we work with provinces and territories throughout the season. I have meetings with my provincial and territorial counterparts during the year and we’re always collaborating on what steps we can take together to assist in either emergency in the case of wildfire suppression, but also how we can deal with things like evacuation and then eventually recovery as well.

Last week, World Weather Attribution published a report about this summer’s wildfires both in the Northwest Territories and in northwestern Ontario. That report noted that some communities are seeing shortened recovery times between emergencies, which ultimately starts to affect those communities’ long-term resilience. As disasters become increasingly common, is there anything that the federal government is doing to help maintain or build long-term resilience? If so, what does that look like?

The federal government is taking a lot of action with respect to resilience in terms of working with provinces and territories. One of the ways that we did that is by revamping the disaster finance arrangements. Post-disaster, provinces and territories are eligible for funding from the federal government, and that DFAA, the disaster relief funding arrangement, was updated in 2025, and it provided a different funding stream that allows provinces and territories to use monies to make their communities more resilient. ISC [Indigenous Services Canada] has funding available for community resilience for First Nations on reserve, and as well through through the Build Canada Homes funding, there were a number of different streams available. One of those streams is available for community resilience and mitigation against disasters. So those are at least some of the ways that there is funding available in that regard and assistance for communities.

Ahead of our conversation, I reached out to leaders from communities that have been evacuated due to wildfires this summer, and I asked if they had any questions for you. Kele Antoine, chief of the Łı́ı́dlı̨ı̨ Kų́ę́ First Nation in Fort Simpson, sent me the following question: First Nations like ours don’t have the same direct access to federal FireSmart funding that many First Nations on reserve in the south have. That funding often flows through other governments and is tied to their plans. Why can’t First Nations like Łı́ı́dlı̨ı̨ Kų́ę́ access funding directly so that we can employ and train our own people to reduce fuel around our community, FireSmart our lands, and help protect our homes before the next fire comes?

It’s my understanding, based on a number of discussions with officials at ISC as well as minister [Mandy] Gull-Masty, that certainly there is funding available through ISC with respect to FireSmart training, also with respect to firefighter training and provision of equipment as well. I would really encourage people who are listening to make sure that they connect with ISC representatives, because it is my understanding that funding is certainly available. That’s an important question.

What would you recommend for communities that aren’t located on a federally designated reserve?

There are a number of other funding streams that are available. Through NRCan [Natural Resources Canada], there’s a fund for equipment and for firefighter training as well.

And what about firesmarting initiatives? Would it be possible for First Nations located off reserve to access those funds directly from the federal government instead of going through territorial or provincial governments?

It’s my understanding that those funds can be accessed directly.

Note: Cabin Radio later asked the minister’s office which funding streams can be directly accessed by First Nations located off reserve. A response was not received before deadline.

Chief Antoine also asked about when evacuations happen. He said his community needs better supports for people, including healthy and appropriate food, transportation, supports for Elders, and for more vulnerable members. Can the federal government work directly with First Nations in the North to make sure that they have access to resources to better prepare for emergencies, to support people during an evacuation, and to recover afterwards?

The way evacuation support is offered, of course through ISC for on-reserve, but for First Nations off reserve, if we receive a request from the territory, then we would be able to provide evacuation assistance through our humanitarian workforce program. And that involves a number of NGOs that help us with evacuations, be it the Canadian Red Cross, Salvation Army, we have a number of partners that we work with. That said, provinces and territories have their own bilateral arrangements with a number of those agencies, and so, in the case of the NWT, they would be able to call on for support whatever entity they have an arrangement with, and that would be that they’d be able to get assistance with evacuation support that way, which I believe they’ve already done in the case of the Salvation Army in the NWT.

With the rise of AI, we’ve seen misinformation about wildfires spread on social media, and the Northwest Territories might be particularly vulnerable to this because so many communities rely on Facebook to share information. What is your government doing to help prevent the spread of misinformation about wildfires?

In terms of something done specifically, what we have done is at our FPT meetings, so province, territory, federal government – which we do a number of times a year – we’ve discussed that issue. And I know that provinces and territories have, in some cases, very good public service announcements to remind people that the only source of information that they should be listening to is the official source. In the province of British Columbia, for example, it will be whatever their emergency management department puts out, and to make sure that people understand that.

It’s in some ways surprising that it’s turned into the concern that it has, but I have heard a number of reports over the past two seasons – this one and the one before – with respect to that kind of thing happening, and people really do need to listen to official sources and not just anything they might find on some aspect of social media.

Sometimes the issue is that misinformation is made to look like it’s coming from official sources. Is there anything that people should keep in mind when perhaps going through their feeds and making decisions based on what they see on social media?

That’s difficult for people if it’s something that’s emulating an official source. The thing that I would recommend is checking multiple. There are multiple official sources. And it’s maybe to verify that with what else people might be hearing on the radio, on a news broadcast, and I think that would be effective.

We’ve seen reports on how human-caused climate change is making natural disasters like wildfires exponentially worse in the Northwest Territories, in particular. At the same time, we’ve seen Prime Minister Mark Carney admit that Canada is not on track to meet the previous government’s emission targets and the previous government’s climate plan, which he said was too expensive and too divisive. To what degree do you see your portfolio overlapping with climate preparedness?

It does absolutely overlap with climate preparedness, and what I would add to that is that we understand we’re at a moment in time where we need to protect our country’s sovereignty. We need to protect our energy sovereignty, and we need to protect our economic independence. And so, being able to develop our resources, take our resources to market. It’s an important time in our history for doing that.

That said, I really want to be sure that your listeners understand that we have not abandoned our commitment to taking action on climate. We’re simply going about it, perhaps in a different way than what was done previously. And I will use as an example of the MOU [memorandum of understanding] signed with Alberta, which throughout the number of agreements that have been signed thus far, make it very clear that action on climate is fundamentally important to that agreement, even though it’s for one of the things it covers is of course a pipeline to the west coast. And so if a person takes a look at the MOU and the subsequent agreements, they will see that things such as increasing interties and the electricity grid are fundamentally important.

Things like an appropriate pricing mechanism for carbon, things like methane emissions reductions, those are all part and parcel of that agreement. And I expect that in other agreements relative to major projects, that similar climate action issues will be embedded in those documents, just as they have been in the MOU with Alberta, and so we’ve not abandoned our commitment at all.

Do you think that is sufficient to help reduce the impact of climate disasters on smaller communities?

I’m not a climate scientist, and I’m not able to really answer that. I wouldn’t be able to do it very accurately. But what I can do is say that from a federal government perspective, we are absolutely committed to not only taking action on climate change, but taking whatever steps, in terms of economic development, but also taking other steps with respect to preservation of our lands, preservation of water resources.

There have been a number of announcements that Minister [Julie] Dabrusin has made over the past couple of months that speak of our concerns with respect to the environment and steps we’re going to take. And there are significant investments being made in the environment and fighting climate change.

Do you see it as part of your role to work with the prime minister and other members of cabinet to help reduce emissions that are worsening disasters?

You know, I think it’s part and parcel of of all of our work — MPs, ministers — to all contribute to the discussion with respect to climate change and action on the environment.