In your situation, it would probably be best to keep a portion of your money in safe, liquid investments. If you own stocks (or stocks in mutual funds) that pay dividends, most of them will continue to pay some or all of the dividend in a stock market crash. As long as the business continues to operate and produce income, you will probably receive your share. Other than banks, that's what happened in the 2008 crash. If your dividends are reinvested, your dividend income will buy more shares. If the dividends are used as part of your income, the income should not suffer as much as the underlying value of the stock.
If there is a huge economic disaster, having money with an insurance company is not safe. Several major insurance companies came very close to failing in October 2008. AIG did fail. Generally, in the US, FDIC-insured bank deposits and US treasury bills and notes are the most secure paper instruments. Not sure about Canada.
Having multiple streams of income also helps. People with jobs or unemployment insurance generally continue to pay their rent in bad times. The values of my rentals dropped dramatically between 2007 and 2011, but the rent checks still arrived in the mail. As people lost houses in foreclosure, demand for rentals actually went up. I had FDIC insured CD's paying over 5 percent. Goods and services you can sell will probably still have some demand for them, although the business income may decline.
What you do is cobble together enough income to survive, keeping some supplemental money in safe and accessible accounts to smooth things out, and avoid selling your assets when their values go down. When things start to improve, you take any increase in your income and buy assets that are still depressed.