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Ottawa’s bills for dealing with natural disasters neared half a billion dollars in two of the last three years amid a warning to Canadians that this country was one of the worst affected by climate change in 2018.

Data from Public Safety Canada lists the average annual bill for disaster assistance at $430 million over the last three years. That includes $485.8 million in 2016-17, $494.9 million in 2017-18 and $309.5 million in 2018-19.

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In the five years before that, the federal government’s average annual disaster clean-up bills were $360 million, which was three times the average costs in the five years before that.

The disaster-assistance program helps provinces when the costs of major events like floods and forest fires exceed a predetermined amount based on a province’s population. An estimated $5.4 billion has been sent out under the program since its inception in 1970.

Almost one-quarter of that — $1.3 billion — was in just the last three years.