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RIMS Canada Conference Kicks Off with Top Honors for Canadian Risk Professionals

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Catherine Dowdall (right) receives the Donald M. Stuart Award from Valerie Fox (left) for lifetime achievement in risk management

OTTAWA—The 2023 RIMS Canada Conference is officially underway here in Ottawa, Ontario, convening more than 1,400 Canadian risk professionals in the nation’s capital.

After opening remarks from RIMS CEO Gary LaBranche and RIMS Canada Council Chair Steve Pottle (below), the conference began with recognition for outstanding accomplishments from RIMS Canada members. Considered the highest honor in the Canadian risk management community, this year’s Donald M. Stuart Award went to Catherine Dowdall, director of insurance and loss control at AECON Construction.

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Presented by the Ontario chapter of RIMS (ORIMS), the award recognizes exceptional contributions to the risk management profession by a risk practitioner from any of the nation’s 13 provinces.

“Risk management is constantly evolving, but the guiding principles behind the Donald M.

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Stuart Award—a commitment to building relationships, sharing experiences, thought-leadership and altruism—have remained the same,” said Valerie Fox, vice president of ORIMS. “In addition to being a trailblazing risk leader, day-in and day-out, Catherine Dowdall graciously devotes her time to helping up-and-coming risk professionals navigate the profession and leverage opportunities to succeed.”

“The risk community is filled with amazing business leaders who are genuinely passionate about supporting others in this wonderfully, rewarding profession,” said Catherine Dowdall. “For those just starting out, don’t be afraid to ask questions, reach out to your peers, volunteer with your local RIMS chapter, take advantage of opportunities that are presented to you. I am truly humbled to be joining previous Donald M. Stuart Award winners, many of whom I have worked alongside with and whom I deeply respect for their continued commitment to risk management excellence.”

Catherine Dowdall accepts the Donald M. Stuart Award

During her 40-year risk management career, Dowdall has worked for an array of prominent Canadian corporations, including AECON Construction, Tim Hortons, Canada Post, OLG, Brookfield Properties, Cadillac Fairview, as well as the Ontario Ministry of Government Services. She has also held a number of positions on the board of ORIMS, including serving as president from 1999 to 2000.

“It is always such a pleasure to be able to present this prestigious award to an outstanding individual in our profession,” Fox said. “This year is extra special as I have known and admired Catherine for a long time and have seen first-hand how she embodies all of the creeds that the award represents, particularly the creed of always giving back.”

The Fred H. Bossons Award was also bestowed during the opening session. The award recognizes the individual with the highest average score on the three exams required for the Canadian Risk Management (CRM) designation.

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This year’s winner was Mattieu Shorgan, a senior account executive at Wells Fargo.

Unprecedented Wildfires Devastate Canada, Leave Eastern U.S. Blanketed in Smoke

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Wildfire season has started two months early in Canada, and the devastating scale of the blazes is already unprecedented. Over 400 fires have caused roughly 10 million acres of burn damage so far, and have blanketed a wide swath of North America in smoke, creating orange skies and toxic levels of air pollution for communities all the way from Canada to the Southeastern United States. During the first week of June, New York had the worst air quality on Earth, and the air quality reached hazardous levels in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. While it has begun to clear in the Northeast, the fires are ongoing and the air quality may continue to change in the days and weeks to come.

Find more answers to common questions about the wildfires below:

Where is all the smoke coming from?

Unfortunately, there is not just one answer for that, as there are multiple regional fires breaking out seemingly all over Canada and even the United States. However, the current air quality issues are coming from out-of-control wildfires in Quebec and Ottawa, Canada. There are also wildfires breaking out in at least six U.S. states, including Missouri, Kansas and New Mexico, but these do not appear to be involved in the air quality crisis.

According to the Associated Press and Canadian officials, the fires in Canada mark the start of what is expected to be Canada’s worst wildfire season ever due to drier ground than usual, which led the fires to accelerate very quickly.

“Right now, with the manpower we have, we can fight about 40 fires at the same time,” said Francois Legault, premier of Quebec, in an interview with Reuters. “But we have 150 fires, so we have to make sure that we focus where the problems are more urgent.”

In total, there are 425 active fires throughout Canada, according to Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, and 232 are considered out of control. About 120,000 Canadians have been displaced from their homes due to emergency evacuations, with the most recent being from remote parts of Northern Quebec, according to Reuters. There are fires in nearly all of Canada’s provinces. The current wildfires in the U.S. have led to no evacuations thus far.

Why is the U.S. experiencing poor air quality?

To put it simply, the Northeastern region of the U.S. and the rest of the Eastern seaboard as far down as South Carolina are stuck in a slow-moving weather pattern that is carrying the smoke and smell from the Canadian fires southward. According to Politico, 13 U.S. states are under air quality alerts, impacting over 55 million people.

The AP noted that smoke from various Canadian fires has actually been showing up in parts of the U.S. since May, but with new fires recently breaking out in Quebec, the air quality has increasingly gotten worse in both Canada and the U.S. The hazy, orange-tinted skies and smoke smell along the eastern U.S. are expected to dissipate soon but may still be present through the weekend.

How do the fires impact businesses?

The fires affect certain industries more than others. Outdoor work like construction, sporting events, primary schools, park services and zoos are continuing to pay close attention to the air quality and have suspended outdoor operations accordingly while air quality is at such dangerous levels. Many professional sporting events have been cancelled. The New York Yankees, Chicago White Sox, Philadelphia Phillies and Detroit Tigers have postponed baseball games throughout the week, with minor league baseball teams, soccer teams and WNBA teams following their lead.

During the course of the week, airports have been taking various precautions, with JFK, LaGuardia and Newark Liberty International Airport grounding flights, shutting down inbound flights and changing flight schedules. Similar precautions were taken at Philadelphia International Airport. Because this is an ongoing situation, these measures and flight operations remain in flux.

How do we manage the risk?

In terms of immediate action, experts recommend staying indoors, wearing a mask if going outside and keeping windows and doors closed until the air quality alerts are lifted. By the end of the week, New York City’s air quality is expected to be upgraded from “unhealthy” to “unhealthy for sensitive groups.” To find out about your specific area, visit AirNow.gov.

Looking longer-term, the current fires are a good reminder that natural disasters stretch far beyond hurricanes, flooding and tornadoes, especially as the climate continues to change. A recent study found that increases in burned forest area across the western U.S. and southwestern Canada over the last several decades can be linked to significant human-caused climate change.

For businesses, take this as a reminder to examine how your organization will handle fallout from wildfires, for example, reviewing your property insurance, business interruption coverage, disaster recovery plans or emergency communications procedures. The following resources from Risk Management can help organizations consider the many risks wildfires and other climate change-related extreme weather events pose to businesses and communities, and can help boost disaster preparedness for these devastating events.

More resources:

Updates to PIPEDA, Canada’s Own GDPR

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The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada released new breach reporting requirements for businesses last week.

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Updates to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), which became law in 2000, will impact private-sector organizations that operate or do business with Canadian customers. The federal privacy law establishes ground rules for how businesses must handle personal information in the course of commercial activity, mandating that organizations must obtain an individual’s consent when they collect, use or disclose the individual’s personal information.

PIPEDA is similar to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) since it requires Canadian companies to alert customers any time their personal information may have been compromised.

“The number and frequency of significant data breaches over the past few years have proven there’s a clear need for mandatory reporting,” Commissioner Daniel Therrien said. “Mandatory breach reporting and notification will create an incentive for organizations to take security more seriously and bring enhanced transparency and accountability to how organizations manage personal information.”

A statement from the commissioner’s page lists, in brief, the new regulations for organizations subject to PIPEDA:

  • Report to the Privacy Commissioner’s office any breach of security safeguards where it creates a “real risk of significant harm;”
  • Notify individuals affected by a breach of security safeguards where there is a real risk of significant harm;
  • Keep records of all breaches of security safeguards that affect the personal information under their control; and
  • Keep those records for two years.

Commissioner Therrien called the regulations “imperfect but a step in the right direction.”

He also raised concerns that the reporting requirements fall short in that, for example, they don’t ensure the breach reports to his office provide the information necessary to assess the quality of organizations’ safeguards. As well, the Canadian government has not provided the Privacy Commissioner’s office with resources to analyze breach reports, provide advice and verify compliance. The Canadian government has established that the confidentiality of information was not respected regarding those customers who take the viagra medicine. As a result, the office’s work will be somewhat superficial and the regime will be less effective in protecting privacy.

According to the PIPEDA information page:

The individual has a right to access personal information held by an organization and to challenge its accuracy, if need be. Personal information can only be used for the purposes for which it was collected.

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If an organization is going to use it for another purpose, consent must be obtained again.

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Individuals should also be assured that their information will be protected by appropriate safeguards.

Additionally, a privacy toolkit is available here for organizations to use and assess if it adheres to PIPEDA responsibilities.

Asking the Big Questions about Canada’s Future

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eric noel canada towards 2030

Photo: Hilary Tuttle

WINNIPEG, MANITOBA, Canada — In keeping with this year’s RIMS Canada Conference theme, “Crossroads: Changing Landscapes,” Eric Noël, senior vice president of Oxford Analytica in North America and initiator of the Canada Towards 2030 Project, presented research and projections on the top trends that will shape the nation’s future.

“Risk managers cannot afford to freeze in the face of uncertainty or change, and the longer a difficult decision is delayed, the higher its cost, so this is a call for action,” Noël said.

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“Remember that failing to plan is planning to fail.”

Yet projecting out 16 years introduces many ideas and problems that cannot accurately be planned for today. Instead, the planning he encourages is strategic and much broader in scope, examining broad trends, then drilling down into specific political, economic, and environmental implications. For example, Noël said, “Black swans will be the dictator of geopolitical change.

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” While such events cannot be planned for specifically, it is critical to consider long-term questions of how to engage in global power systems and what areas of primary strength the nation should focus on.

canada towards 2030In other areas, key trends and questions for strategic risk management planning include:

• The most important population trend in Canada is migrations and the resultant political shift. Because of the tremendous shift west and the allocation of votes, a future prime minister could be elected without a single vote from Quebec, bringing dramatically different priorities into office than a candidate who requires the support of the East.

• Aging will not only impact the workforce and demands on the medical system, but will also signal changes in the country’s median income, sovereign debt ranking, and provincial budgets. A larger number of retirees and elderly citizens will increase retirement benefit spending to 13% of Canada’s GDP, and the provinces must start setting aside billions now to pay for that care.

• The first group of less financially-prepared, due to changes in saving practices, will soon be retiring. This will prompt deleveraging and scaling down, whether that means selling their vacation homes or cutting back on lifestyle spending. Further, for those with the financial means, there will be an increase in the number of people with the ability to snowbird. This will have a significant impact on Canada, at the city level, when thousands of residents depart for several months every year.

• Canada’s booming oil industry may be a double-edged sword due to finite resources. The addiction to fuel is becoming an addiction to fiscal incomes for parts of the country as oil royalties surge.

• Political risk is underrated in emerging markets, and emerging markets are quickly becoming divergent markets.

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“The next economies trying to achieve that $1 trillion level in the future are countries transitioning from the hundreds of billion in GDP such as Indonesia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Argentina, etc,” said Noël. “They have nothing in common with our current $1 trillion economies clients in terms of stability and due to their particular political systems will have us re-assess our risks more than just once quantitative easing is gone or China has slowed down. Political risk matters a lot for the future of globalization.” BRIC-centric thinking will no longer suffice and current global powers will have to adapt to cooperate with these new players, or they may opt to ally more closely with similar nations instead.

The Canada Towards 2030 Project is an apolitical, independent and non-prescriptive initiative dedicated to creating and sharing long-term research about Canada’s future. According to the group, “Uncertainties should not frighten or paralyze us; they should help us anticipate and prepare. Avoiding or minimizing a risk—as well as finding and maximizing a new opportunity—requires imagination and leadership.”

To that end, Noël and his team aim to use research and non-prescriptive thought leadership on some of the biggest topics shaping the future of the country, including labor, agriculture, governance, oil production and consumption and water supply. “The mission of the C2030 project is to offer a high quality forward-thinking experience to people interested in exploring the future of Canada, increasing their awareness of long-term trends, helping them improve their ability to anticipate change and facilitate the creation of or adaptation to the future they want,” the website explains.