Canada Earthquake Trends: Steady Shaking, Growing Exposure

Office workers standing on a street in Ottawa after evacuating buildings
People evacuated from buildings in Ottawa after the M5.0 earthquake of 23 June 2010. Photo: The.Rohit via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.
Steady quakes, rising exposureUpdated 17 October 2026

Trend summary

  • Canada does not have more earthquakes than it used to. What is growing is how much stands in their way.
  • About 5,000 earthquakes are detected in Canada each year, and a damaging-range quake of magnitude 5 or more happens about once a year.
  • Natural Resources Canada scientists say the country’s earthquake exposure has nearly doubled in 40 years, because cities have grown in hazard zones.
  • Canada switched on earthquake early warning in BC in 2024 and in Quebec and Ontario in November 2025, covering more than 10 million people.
~5,000earthquakes detected in Canada each year
10M+people who can now receive early warnings
$128Bestimated economic loss from an M9 quake in BC
~3%earthquake insurance take-up, Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec City

What the numbers show

Natural Resources Canada says roughly 5,000 earthquakes are detected across Canada each year. An older Geological Survey estimate said about 4,000; the difference reflects better monitoring, not more activity. Southwestern BC alone records about 400 a year, a dozen of them felt. Earthquakes Canada issued 99 significant-earthquake reports for 2025, against 74 for 2022 (Earthquakes Canada); the largest was an M7.0 on the Yukon-Alaska border on 6 December 2025.

The financial exposure is concentrated. The Insurance Bureau of Canada estimates that 92% of British Columbians face seismic risk and that an M9 quake would cause about $128 billion in losses. In the Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec City corridor, only about 3% of households have earthquake insurance, against about 61% in BC’s Lower Mainland.

What is driving it

Off the BC coast, the Juan de Fuca plate slides beneath North America. That Cascadia subduction zone can produce magnitude 9 earthquakes every 200 to 800 years; the last one struck in January 1700. Risk rises as cities grow on top of that hazard, which is why NRCan and the GEM Foundation built a national seismic risk model (Earthquake Spectra, 2023).

In Western Canada, people also cause quakes. A peer-reviewed study (Atkinson et al., Seismological Research Letters, 2016) found that about 62% of magnitude 3+ quakes in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin in 2010-2015 were linked to hydraulic fracturing and 31% to wastewater disposal. The Insurance Bureau of Canada notes that Canada is the only G7 country with significant earthquake risk and no government-backed insurance backstop.

Recent cases

  • 6 December 2025: an M7.0 earthquake on the southern Yukon-Alaska border shakes items off walls and shelves across western Yukon; no structural damage is reported (Earthquakes Canada).
  • 27 November 2025: Canada activates earthquake early warning in Quebec and Ontario with more than 200 sensors (NRCan).
  • 21 February 2025: an M4.7 quake near Sechelt, BC, is felt as far as Prince George and triggers an early-warning alert (Earthquakes Canada).

Press releases and official reports, 2023–2026

Five key releases a year for the last four years, newest first. Most come from federal departments and agencies, the Transportation Safety Board, Statistics Canada and provincial governments; a few news and trade reports are included where they are the clearest public record of an event. Releases from 2007–2022 are in the expandable list after 2023.

2026

2025

2024

2023

View 20 years of major Canadian earthquake reports (2007–2026)70 more from 2007–2022, up to five a year, newest first

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

Some early years list fewer than five items. Many Canadian government releases from that period are no longer online at their original addresses, and we only list items we could open and check. Where a page shows no date, the date comes from the release address or the publisher’s own index.

Photo list

Shaking intensity map of the 2012 Haida Gwaii earthquake off British Columbia
USGS shaking map of the M7.8 Haida Gwaii earthquake off British Columbia, October 2012. Photo: United States Geological Survey via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
Cross-section chart of earthquake depths beneath the Pacific Northwest
Earthquake depths in the Cascadia subduction zone, which runs from northern California to Vancouver Island. Photo: Davezelenka via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.

Related on ROR Labs

How this page is built. Figures come from the official statistical releases linked above; where agencies publish provisional numbers we say so, because they are revised. Canadian statistics are often collected by provinces and territories, and some national series run several years behind, so we say which area and year each figure covers. Photos are public-domain or Creative Commons images credited in each caption; file photos are illustrative and are not from the events described unless the caption says so. This page tracks trends and is not personal safety, medical, legal or financial advice.