What Finland Can Teach Us about Preparing for Disasters

Recent flashpoints in American politics have shown us how quickly and easily a seemingly routine event can turn into a crisis. The U.S. announcement of tariffs on Tuesday brought Canadian retaliatory tariffs and a blistering speech from outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Last week, the Oval Office clash between U.S. President Donald Trump, Vice-President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was a dramatic example of how a crisis can echo around the world. Very unpleasant consequences could, at a minimum, disrupt our lives for days or weeks.

It makes sense, then, to make sure we can get through at least the first few days of a serious crisis, should one erupt in our local context.

Most governments offer preparedness guides of some kind — advice on how to cope during a natural disaster, or an extended loss of power or water. The B.C. government has a pretty good page on public emergency preparation and recovery. It deals with earthquakes and tsunamis, severe weather and pandemics, and offers advice on planning for such emergencies and building an emergency kit.

The site may have seen more traffic after three recent earthquakes took place in B.C., one near Sechelt on Feb. 21, one in the Pacific almost 200 kilometres west of Vancouver Island on Feb. 25 and one 42 kilometres east of Sidney on Monday.

But most of us prefer to look on the bright side of life, like the cheerful optimists we are. We might be quick to comfort ourselves with the notion that disasters tend to happen to other people in other places, and we forget them very quickly.

The Nordic countries are ahead of us

The Nordic countries — Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland — and the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have longer memories. They all live very close to the Russian Federation, whose very existence is a potential catastrophe for all its neighbours. The Nordics and Baltics have to take that threat very seriously.

Norway recently issued a white paper on total preparedness, to ensure that “Norwegian civil society is equipped to deal with a crisis or war,” including hybrid war.

The white paper says the government should set up an emergency preparedness committee in every municipality, increase the number of conscripts in civil defence to 12,000 from 8,000 and require all new buildings to include emergency shelters.

Sweden, which hasn’t fought a war in two centuries, has issued a booklet to every household in the country, as noted in yesterday’s Tyee opinion piece calling for a new Canadian civil defence corps.

“If Crisis or War Comes” outlines steps that civilians can take in such cases: put your phone on silent if you’re near a terrorist attack, and don’t phone anyone else who may be hiding from terrorists.

And keep a reserve of non-perishable food including cooking oil, precooked lentils and canned soup and spaghetti sauce.

Canada, take notes from Finland

Canadians can learn from guides like these, but the country we should follow more closely is Finland. Late last year, the Suomi.fi web service published a preparedness guide for Finnish residents. “Preparing for Incidents and Crises” is an interactive website that lets users view a whole menu of disasters, from epidemics and pandemics to storms and floods to terrorism to cybersecurity.

Significantly, the guide is available in multiple languages including three dialects of Sami (spoken by Nordic Indigenous Peoples), Ukrainian, Somali, Arabic, Farsi (spoken by Iranians) and Dari (spoken by Afghans). Finland has been a haven for many refugees and asylum seekers who will understand the importance of crisis preparedness.

The menu enables users to select specific topics, like “information influencing and hybrid influencing,” communications disruptions and even radiation hazards.

Check the box on a topic like “radiation hazard” and you get a checklist for general emergency supplies plus advice on surviving a nuclear power plant accident or the detonation of a nuclear weapon.

The site provides information for users to learn how to recognize the alarm signal for a radiation hazard, and to know which apps, radio and TV stations and websites will provide reliable information.

It also advises people to keep a stock of iodine tablets so their thyroid gland doesn’t soak up radioactive iodine, which can be produced in a nuclear accident or detonation.

Interactive crisis planning

Users scanning Finland’s disaster menu in “Preparing for Incidents and Crises” are likely to find topics they hadn’t considered before, like hybrid influencing, activities it refers to as “the systematic and continuous activities of a foreign state that are detrimental to the country subject to the activities. The aim of hybrid influence activities is to have a negative impact on issues such as the decision-making of central government and the functioning of society.”

The guide gives at least the basics on each topic, and a chance to assess the content: good, partly good or bad.

In mid-February 2025, Suomi.fi published a press release saying the guide had already reached half a million visits (out of a total population of 5.6 million).

“Satisfied respondents,” the release said, “accounted for 70 per cent and partly satisfied respondents to 13 per cent of the total. The feedback received will be taken into account in the further development of the contents of the guide.”

That’s another advantage of the Finnish guide: it’s a co-operative effort between authorities and users, and improved editions will be easy to develop and distribute online.

Preparing as a community

One key point in the Finnish guide is this: “Preparedness is about co-operation.”

It’s not just hunkering down and eating lentils in the one room you can keep warm. “Interpersonal interactions and participation should be built in normal times,” the guide says.

“You can prepare for extraordinary situations by discussing the needs for help and support together with others in your work or residential community or other community that is important to you.”

The B.C. preparedness guide makes a similar argument in its booklet on preparing your whole neighbourhood for a crisis.

If residents on a given street can keep themselves warm, fed, sheltered and informed without immediate help from the authorities, the authorities can spend more time helping the less prepared.

The disastrous quarrel between Trump and Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, and the widespread unrest wrought by the recent tariffs, could lead to many of the crises dealt with in the preparedness guides — especially information influencing, cybersecurity and disruptions in communications and electrical infrastructure.

If we and our neighbours or co-workers are prepared and able to help one another out, the crisis will be that much less. And we will be better equipped to cope with the next one.