- Canada 2026
- Chapter 5
Western heat, drought and fire year
A conditional statement under stated assumptions, never a prediction.
Contents
- ·Edition home
- ·Executive summary
- 1Canada’s risk is coupled, not cumulative
- 2Key findings
- 3Systems and sectors at baseline
- 4Risks and capability
- 5Western heat, drought and fire year
- 6Lenses and readings
- 7The 2027 agenda
- 8Systems in depth
- AMethodology
- BData appendix
- CReferences and record
- ·Complete edition, for print
5.1Assumptions
Scenario SCN-CAN-HDF-01: what is assumed, and what is held constant.
- Baseline
- the 2026 reference state in this edition
- Drivers
- a second consecutive low-snowpack winter in British Columbia and Alberta; a heat dome of 2021 magnitude in late June; an early and intense fire season
- Analogues
- 2021 heat dome and Prairie drought; 2023 fire season
- Interventions
- none modelled, the specification describes the unmitigated case
- Run state
- narrative specification; quantified Foundry run scheduled for Q1 2027
5.2The cascade, step by step
- 1
CLI → WAT
low snowpack and heat cut summer flows and reservoir inflow.
2023 low water
- 2
WAT → ENE
lower hydro output; imports at peak prices
2023–2024
- 3
CLI → HLT
heat deaths and emergency visits; cooling in care settings.
2021 heat dome6
- 4
BIO → HLT
smoke over Prairie and BC cities for weeks.
2023 season10
- 5
WAT → FOO
canola and wheat yields fall by a third or more.
2021 drought20
- 6
CLI → INF
fire and heat slow rail operations; export delays.
2021 · 2023
5.3The scenario as a table of steps
How the shock in scenario SCN-CAN-HDF-01 would travel through Canada’s coupled systems, step by step, under the assumptions the edition states.
| Step | What happens | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 01 Climate to water | Low snowpack and heat cut summer flows and reservoir inflow. Analogue or source: 2023 low water. | Edition CAN, scenario SCN-CAN-HDF-01, step 1 |
| 02 Water to energy | Lower hydro output; imports at peak prices. Analogue or source: 2023–2024. | Edition CAN, scenario SCN-CAN-HDF-01, step 2 |
| 03 Climate to health | Heat deaths and emergency visits; cooling in care settings. Analogue or source: 2021 heat dome [6]. | Edition CAN, scenario SCN-CAN-HDF-01, step 3 |
| 04 Biodiversity to health | Smoke over Prairie and BC cities for weeks. Analogue or source: 2023 season [10]. | Edition CAN, scenario SCN-CAN-HDF-01, step 4 |
| 05 Water to food | Canola and wheat yields fall by a third or more. Analogue or source: 2021 drought [20]. | Edition CAN, scenario SCN-CAN-HDF-01, step 5 |
| 06 Climate to infrastructure | Fire and heat slow rail operations; export delays. Analogue or source: 2021 · 2023. | Edition CAN, scenario SCN-CAN-HDF-01, step 6 |
A teaching model of a conditional scenario under the edition’s stated assumptions: not a forecast, not a prediction and not a warning. Sources: Canada 2026, scenario SCN-CAN-HDF-01 (2026); Canada 2026, references (NR-CIT-1) (2026).
Notes
Numbers are the edition’s reference numbers, so a note reads the same in every chapter. The full list, with every source and its licence, is in Annex C. Annex C, references.
- 6BC Coroners Service (ed.), Extreme Heat and Human Mortality: A Review of Heat-Related Deaths in B.C. in Summer 2021. Government of British Columbia, Victoria, 2022.back
- 10Natural Resources Canada (ed.), Canada’s record-breaking 2023 wildfire season. Canadian Forest Service, Ottawa, 2024.back
- 20Statistics Canada (ed.), “Production of principal field crops, November 2021.” The Daily, Ottawa, December 2021.back