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The federal agency responsible for checking and regulating measurement of everything from gas pumps to electricity meters is identifying climate as a risk to its highly specialized operations.
The agency — Measurement Canada — may sound boring, but if you have ever pumped gas, paid an electricity bill or bought vegetables at a self-checkout, you have relied on its oversight to ensure you are paying the right amount for goods.
Recently, federal organizations were surveyed by the Department of Finance about the impact of climate change on their work, and a 2024 report was produced on climate-related financial risk management, as required under the Canadian Net-Zero Accountability Act.
The survey, filled out by Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED), was obtained by Canada’s National Observer through an access to information request.
Canada’s National Observer is using these risk assessment surveys and other documents to reveal how climate change could impact different federal organizations including the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and Department of National Defence.
ISED identified particular risks to the work of Measurement Canada — a regulatory agency that relies on highly specialized equipment and laboratory conditions to ensure accurate, reliable measurements in the purchase and sale of measured goods in Canada.
To ensure accuracy, the agency must calibrate specialized equipment in specific conditions so it can certify measuring devices, including retail and commercial scales, electricity and natural gas meters, to name a few. The specialized test equipment is also used by inspectors to test and certify the accuracy of measuring devices used in the Canadian marketplace — for example, there are stickers at gas pumps indicating the last time it was inspected by Measurement Canada.
Like many of the federal government’s buildings, the laboratories and temperature control infrastructure used by Measurement Canada are more than 20 years old, according to the survey ISED completed. It said there is a risk ISED will not achieve climate-resilient operations for these labs due to “insufficient investment” in retrofits, which could also increase costs down the line.
Climate change, driven largely by burning fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and gas, is causing and worsening extreme heat and weather events.
“With temperatures becoming more extreme and unpredictable, there is a risk that [Measurement Canada] will not be able to stabilize the heating, cooling and humidity conditions” necessary to do these calibrations, the risk survey warned.
As a result, laboratories could have to suspend calibrations for increasing periods of time, and that downtime equals lost wages for employees, including Measurement Canada inspectors and service providers the agency has authorized to conduct inspections, the survey said.
It said this could also impact businesses that are legally required to have their scales and other measuring devices certified within certain time periods.
Consumers could also be worse off if these climate risks come to fruition, Daniel Henstra, a professor of political science and co-director of the Climate Risk Research Group at University of Waterloo, said in a phone interview with Canada’s National Observer.
“Gas is damn expensive, and it’s per litre, and if you’re not getting what the pump says you’re getting, that is a real problem,” he said.
“If it’s underfilled or overcharged, that means that the supplier could lose revenue, or the consumer could be skunked, and neither of those is in the public interest.”
“Imagine how even small errors in measurement could add up over thousands of transactions,” he said. If climate change ends up causing the agency trouble and reducing its ability to ensure reliable measurements for purchase and sale of both retail and commercial goods, it could also “really undermine consumer trust in the system.”
Henstra mused that there could potentially be trade implications because Measurement Canada oversees both retail and commercial measurements and when nations trade with each other, there must be confidence in the accuracy of our trade measurements.
Extreme heat is one of the easiest climate impacts for scientists to predict, and air conditioning is one of the most basic adaptation measures to deal with it, yet institutions are still not doing a very good job installing it, Henstra said.
If the agency’s laboratories can’t get the right testing conditions and have to suspend calibration operations for increasing periods of time, that would likely increase the likelihood of miscalibration between inspections, Henstra said. Things that “need the highest level of precision” include components of machinery, such as electrical meters or timekeeping devices that would be used in electricity or gas billing, he said.
Supply chain disruptions were another climate risk identified in the survey.
Climate-change-related weather events, such as hurricanes, flooding and wildfires, “could potentially impact the availability of key factors, from material sourcing to equipment delivery, further delaying the acquisition of this equipment,” Measurement Canada said in an emailed statement to Canada’s National Observer. The survey noted delays in receiving specialized test equipment or other items needed to perform inspections, prototype device approvals and calibrate measurements for new technologies — such as electric vehicle equipment — could cause the cost of procurement to increase “significantly.” The department had not yet done a full financial impact assessment of these possible climate-related risks. On the whole, the federal government is trying to protect approximately $110 billion in assets — including more than 34,000 buildings — from the impacts of climate change.
Measurement is all about consistency and we don’t think about how so many important regulations are underpinned by incredibly precise measurements, Henstra said.
“You usually think about infrastructure as being like roads and bridges and sewer systems and stuff, but here we’re talking about a laboratory that requires minute precision in doing measurement, and if they can’t get this critical lab equipment or … don’t have the conditions to operate it in the way that they need to, that is a real problem for regulatory work,” Henstra said.
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