Experts told the Ford government climate change threatens Ontario. Their report wasn't released for 8 months

A new report commissioned by Premier Doug Ford's government warns that climate change poses high risks to Ontario, with impacts on everything from food production to infrastructure to businesses. 

The report – called the Provincial Climate Change Impact Assessment – projects a soaring number of days with extreme heat across Ontario, as well as increases in flooding and more frequent wildfires. 

Presented to the government in January but only posted publicly in late August, the government did not issue a news release about the report. It follows a summer where Ontarians faced at times extreme heat, heavy rainstorms and unprecedented wildfire smoke.    

The report does "the best job that's been done to date describing the impacts of climate change and extreme weather," said Blair Feltmate, head of the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo.  

Its 530 pages are filled with often grim details about the expected effects of climate change in Ontario, including:  

A team of researchers from the Sudbury-based Climate Risk Institute prepared the report, which the government commissioned in 2020. 

"The impacts [of climate change] are very apparent right now, they're very, very stark and quite serious, and this is expected to continue into the future," said Al Douglas, president of the Climate Risk Institute, in an interview with CBC News.

The researchers used historical climate data together with information about the consequences of extreme weather events and projections of future climate trends to come up with their findings. 

For instance, they project how an expected rise in the number of days with extreme heat – 30 degrees and up – will have impacts on Ontario's growing seasons, businesses and human health.  

By the 2080s, the report forecasts that southern, central and eastern Ontario will average 55 to 60 such extreme heat days per year, a nearly fourfold increase from the current annual average of about 16 days. 

Northern Ontario, which experiences an average of 4 extreme heat days annually, is projected to see upwards of 35 such days each year. 

"Changes in Ontario's climate are expected to continue at unprecedented rates," says the report. "It is important to recognize how these findings can be used to spur action to protect residents, ecosystems, businesses and communities across Ontario." 

The report lays out the ways the researchers expect climate change to affect each region of Ontario along five broad themes: infrastructure; food and agriculture; people and communities; natural resources, ecosystems and the environment; business and the economy. 

Douglas says Ontario's food production and agriculture are particularly vulnerable to climate change.