This editorial was written and published by the Globe & Mail on June 21, 2023.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is set to meet Wednesday with the premiers and territorial leaders in Whistler, B.C. Infrastructure spending is on the agenda. Hopefully, the Prime Minister and premiers will pay attention to the road on the way up to the mountain resort town.

That road is the Sea to Sky Highway. It was upgraded ahead of the 2010 Winter Olympics to improve traffic safety – and to better withstand the risks from extreme weather such as severe rainstorms, which are increasing as the climate warms.

Canada needs much more of that kind of climate-resilient infrastructure. Spending now to fortify bridges and roads will save money in the long run, when a bridge does not collapse or a road is not washed away. That is simple common sense; less simple is the answer to the question of who will pay for it.

The premiers want to use the Whistler meeting to lay out demands for more money from Ottawa. Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson, as chair of the Council of the Federation, outlined the premiers’ ask in a letter to the prime minister last week. The premiers want cash transfers in the form of block funding with each province collecting base funding, plus a per capita amount. And they want to decide which projects Ottawa should help pay for.

After all, they argue, who better understands each province’s unique infrastructure needs.

The premiers are right, in part: Ottawa shouldn’t be deciding which highway or interchange gets a green light. But simply handing over bags of cash in the vague hope that the provinces will spend it on climate-minded projects isn’t much of a strategy.

It’s very much in Ottawa’s interest, indeed the national interest, to accelerate the pace of climate-proofing infrastructure.

One approach could be for Ottawa to set up a fund to pay for the incremental costs of building infrastructure to climate-resilient standards. That would preserve the provinces’ ability to decide what infrastructure to fund, while allowing Ottawa to push its climate-resiliency goals.

In 2019, an expert panel laid out the top climate risks in Canada. They warned of damage to critical infrastructure from heavy precipitation events, high winds and flooding. The chances of power outages and grid failures are growing. Coastal communities are especially at risk due to sea-level rise and storm surges, while thawing permafrost threatens Northern communities.

This year’s federal budget was laden with clean energy investments, with a new tax credit to build renewable energy infrastructure, and a new program that gives grants to companies, as well as provincial and territorial governments, that are looking to modernize existing power grids or install renewable power.

Additionally, the federal government has tabled a draft of its $1.6-billion climate adaptation plan. The plan as proposed was incomplete. The Canadian Climate Institute, an independent policy research group, described it as a set of targets and priorities that failed to identify the country’s top climatechange risks. If the final plan addresses those concerns, it will help build communities that can adapt to extreme heat and ice storms, wildfires and flooding.

Mr. Trudeau’s political agenda is clear enough, putting climate resiliency at the centre of discussions over infrastructure. Pragmatic fiscal considerations point the same way. Disasters are increasing in frequency and severity across Canada. They are costly to everyone involved, but the federal government, under the Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements, ends up with the largest financial burden when the recovery bill lands.

There is of course an additional cost to engineering for extreme weather – but it is a much smaller figure than paying for recovery after disaster strikes.

The Climate Institute calculates billions of dollars in savings with pro-active investments in fortifying roads and railways. With small changes in maintenance and replacement work, such as altering asphalt mixes and surface sealants to better withstand rising summer temperatures or greater precipitation, repairs down the road will cost less.

There are also simple, low-cost measures that can be taken now to improve the resilience of the electrical grid that will be so important in our increasingly decarbonized world.

It’s time for governments to co-operate, to make Canada more resilient.