Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Security and Defence
Issue 25 - Evidence of October 20, 2003
OTTAWA, Monday, October 20, 2003
The Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence met this day at 8:15 p.m. to examine and report on the need for a national security policy for Canada.
Senator Colin Kenny (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Honourable senators, at the outset, I would apologize to our witnesses for the committee being so tardy in getting underway. We have been endeavouring to complete a report in camera, and that is a slow process. Since the hour is late and you will be coming back next week, Mr. Harlick, we may defer some of our questions to next week.
Customarily, I do a fairly lengthy introduction of our members, but this evening I will briefly mention that we have with us Senator Forrestall, from Nova Scotia, Senator Atkins from Ontario, Senator Cordy from Nova Scotia, Senators Day from New Brunswick and Senator Meighen from Ontario.
We are examining first responders and we are most interested in hearing from you this evening on the subject of the Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness. The floor is yours, sir.
Mr. James E. Harlick, Assistant Deputy Minister, Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness: With me today are my two colleagues, Ms. Bax, Director General, Programs, OCIPEP, and Mr. O'Bright, Director General, Operations. I will return next week with three regional directors of our offices in Alberta, Quebec and Prince Edward Island. They will be able to give you a good sense of the roles they play in the regional offices, and the relationship that they and the office have with the emergency measures organizations of their provinces.
I will give you a brief overview of our mandate and responsibilities, our legislative frameworks, the practical services and programs we manage and deliver, and a brief note on challenges and opportunities.
It is perhaps trite to say but it is realistic to say that the world has changed since September 11, 2001. Since then Canadians have continued to be affected by those events, not only at home but also in distant areas such as the Middle East and Southeast Asia. The Cold War "peace dividend" period was relatively short-lived, and the global security environment has once again become dynamic and unpredictable.
Canada's national security framework, on which you have a mandate to produce recommendations, must continually adapt to the evolving circumstances and volatile threat environment we face. We cannot afford to be complacent.
Terrorism is but one facet of the broader emergency management challenge. Equally important is the need to be ready for a wide range of natural and accidental disasters that increasingly threaten the safety and security of Canadian communities, large and small, and the reliability of the critical infrastructures on which we all have come to depend.
Canada's emergency management system has demonstrated its inherent strengths and flexibilities in dealing with a multitude of events. This adaptability allows governments at all levels to ensure the safety and security of Canadians and to permit them to fulfill their commitments and obligations.
I would note two key mandates of OCIPEP, which are derived from the press release of the Prime Minister's Office of February 2001, creating the office. One is to provide national leadership for a new, comprehensive point of view and modern approach to protecting Canada's critical infrastructure, and the other is to be the government's primary agency for promoting national civil emergency preparedness for all types of emergencies.
We fulfill both of these mandates by working closely with key federal and provincial stakeholders during major emergencies as the agency responsible for coordinating federal support to provinces and territories through their emergency measures organizations.
The legal foundation for our emergency management activities rests in the Emergency Preparedness Act, which provides and sets out several responsibilities for the responsible minister, that minister being the Minister of National Defence.
With respect to the development of civil emergency plans, the responsibilities of the minister are to develop policies and programs for achieving an appropriate state of national civil preparedness for emergencies; to encourage and support provincial civil preparedness for emergencies and, through provincial governments, local civil preparedness for emergencies; to ensure the continuity of constitutional government, which would be of particular interest to both Houses of Parliament.
The minister is also responsible for the implementation of civil emergency plans, including the monitoring of any imminent or actual emergency, and reporting thereon; coordinating the provision of national assistance to a province in such an instance; and providing financial assistance to a province pursuant to the Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements.
There is no mention of OCIPEP in the Emergency Preparedness Act since the creation of the organization postdates the last revision of the statute.
In addition to the act, which provides responsibilities for all ministers to develop plans for their own area of accountability, there is also the emergency policy of 1995, which supplements the act. We also have developed an all-hazards plan called the National Support Plan, which we use to organize our own activities to coordinate federal aid to the provinces and territories.
I have mentioned federal emergency policy updated last in 1995, which details the lead minister, lead department concept, and also sets out emergency responsibilities for individual departments. For example, health related emergencies fall into the purview of the Minister of Health. For emergencies in which no clear ministerial mandate is identified, or which would arise from a natural disaster, the Minister of National Defence may assume the lead role and we would support him.
Once the lead minister is established, the relevant department becomes the lead organization and OCIPEP assumes a supporting agency role. This could be done by ensuring that a reliable link to other government departments, through OCIPEP, is always available, and by coordinating the federal response to requests for information and for assistance, which we would receive from provincial and territorial emergency measures organizations.
In an emergency, we would issue regular national situation reports that summarize all relevant factual information into a single, concise, all-source document. These situation reports are disseminated to all federal government departments as well as to our regional offices and, through them, to the provinces. They may also be provided to private sector entities.
We have 10 regional offices, one in each provincial capital, and they play a crucial role in linking provincial emergency measures organizations to key federal departments via our national headquarters in Ottawa and, more precisely, the Government Emergency Operations Coordination Centre. Senator Kenny visited us there some weeks ago.
For example, during the SARS outbreak, which was predominantly centred in the Greater Toronto Area, OCIPEP worked closely with Health Canada officials as a supporting federal agency. As the situation grew more complex, OCIPEP increased its staffing in this coordination centre in order to support Health Canada in its dealings with the province and with other federal departments on various aspects of an overall response to the outbreak.
In the August power outage in Ontario, OCIPEP assumed a lead federal role in coordinating a flow of situational and public information on federal facilities in the National Capital Region and, in organizing and providing support from the federal government to the province of Ontario, it managed the consequences of the event.
I would note that, because the incident dealt with electric resources, Natural Resources Canada was subsequently identified as the lead federal department for the purpose of enquiring into the cause of the outage in collaboration with the United States. I would also note that the Treasury Board Secretariat assumed a key role in managing the phased return to service of federal offices in the National Capital Region. The fundamental point to note in that emergency was that the Province of Ontario was the lead for the restoration of electricity to Ontario's residents.
I note that the committee, in carrying out its current mandate, has spoken directly with first responders and emergency managers. In doing so, the committee will realize that this community has a wide range of needs and capacities. For that reason I would speak briefly to OCIPEP's partnership role in capacity building at the provincial and municipal levels.
We support provinces without reservation during emergencies. It is also important to know that we provide ongoing financial and programmatic support at other times. While the Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements, DFAA, provide relief following a disaster, the Joint Emergency Preparedness Plan, JEPP, is tailored to provide direct funding support to assist the provinces in supporting and expanding their first response capacities.
Recognizing that municipalities play a key role in the level of provincial preparedness, funding is provided through the provinces to the municipalities. However, we also deal directly from time to time with the municipalities such as in our urban search and rescue program with the full cooperation and consent of the provinces.
You are probably all aware that the budget of December 2001 set out a large amount of money for chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear preparedness, CBRN. The following pages of my statement set out three programs that are key and that we have delivered to augment the capacity of first responders to deal with the CBRN threat. The first is the development of a four-level training course for first responders to deal with CBRN. There is an introductory course; a basic course; a more intermediate course, which we ourselves deliver at the Canadian Emergency Preparedness College; and an advanced course at Defence Research Development Canada in Suffield.
The second is the provision of $10 million for CBRN equipment purchases by first responders over a two-year period. That money has already been fully committed and we can answer any questions you would like on that program.
Lastly, there is $20 million, over five years, for the development of the Heavy Urban Search and Rescue program, HUSAR. OCIPEP was asked to lead this program with support from its provincial and municipal partners. We can answer your questions on that. This is an example of a situation where we would deal directly with the municipalities of Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal and Halifax as these teams are created.
Research and development is an important area for building capacity and knowledge to handle the emerging threats and hazards that we face in the critical infrastructure protection world and in emergency management. We have a modest but important R&D capacity, which has focused traditionally on emergency management areas and is expanding into the areas of critical infrastructure protection and cyber-security. We have included some information on that. More information is available on our Web site.
Lastly, I would note that, while partnering with the provinces and municipalities, we must look beyond national borders. These days, disasters and crises know no borders and, therefore, the U.S. dimension is an important element in our own work in terms of foreign partnerships. This is grounded on a 1986 agreement with the U.S. in the area of emergency management. It has been supplemented in the world of critical infrastructure protection by the Smart Border Accord, signed by Minister Manley and Secretary Ridge. Item 21 deals with critical infrastructure protection and there is a range of machinery and work being done in that area.
I would mention one more point to reflect on the importance of the Canada-U.S. relationship for us, and that is, as of July this year, we have stationed our own officer in the Canadian Embassy in Washington to augment that liaison on the ground. Next month we will have a full-time liaison officer in the binational planning group in Colorado Springs so that we and through us the civilian departments of the Government of Canada will be able to play effectively in that military planning capacity that BPG is designed to deliver.
Let me stop there. You have all read the statement and I gather you have used it to develop some interesting questions. Perhaps this has set the stage for the question period.
Senator Banks: How mobile are the heavy urban search and rescue teams stationed in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto? How long have they been in place? How fast, for example, since I live in Edmonton, could they get to Edmonton? Did a team go to Edmonton when the tornado struck or were they in existence then? They probably did not exist then since OCIPEP had not been developed. How fast can they move from Calgary to Edmonton or, for that matter, from Toronto to Kitchener?
Senator Forrestall: I hope a lot quicker than they can move to Nova Scotia.
Senator Banks: One is being formed in Halifax. Am I right in that, Mr. Harlick?
Mr. Harlick: Yes, that is quite correct. The most advanced team of those you mentioned is the one stationed in Vancouver. It has achieved international certification, which means that, under the UN auspices, it has the skill set to be deployed internationally. The challenge it would face in doing that is to get from Vancouver to the international destination.
Senator Banks: What about getting to Seattle, for example?
Mr. Harlick: That would be by road. They are road-capable, just as the unit in Alberta is road-deployable. It has not achieved, as yet, international certification, but it is road-deployable. Toronto, I believe, would be in the same category. The Halifax and Montreal teams are more incipient. The idea is that they will be able to do that, but they are not as far along. The Toronto team has completed its equipment purchase, so it now has the capability and capacity, but requires further development and further capacity building to be at the same level as the Alberta and B.C. teams.
Senator Banks: How many people are on such a team?
Mr. Harlick: I do not have those figures offhand. I think it would be around 20.
Senator Banks: Is that all they do? Are they dedicated people? Is that their job, and do they sit somewhere waiting for something to happen?
Mr. Harlick: No, they would be part of and made up from component first-responder elements in their home cities. These are integrated teams. They would bring together the fire capacity, the HAZMAT capacity, emergency medical, and also some extra special skills in which they have been trained and for which they would have equipment. The origin of heavy urban search and rescue is to rescue people from collapsed building, so it is the classic earthquake situation. You need the lifting power, the searching-out power such as acoustics and dogs, et cetera, and you need the ability to deploy emergency medical staff with the skill set to deal with crushed victims and those sorts of situations.
Senator Banks: The team is not parachuted in; it is made up of people who have already been selected to do that job; is that correct?
Mr. Harlick: Correct. It is a predetermined or a pre-made team. They perform exercises together. As Ms. Bax reminds me, there is a distinction in the urban search and rescue world between heavy urban search and rescue, medium and light, depending on how much extra equipment is needed and how fast it can be deployed. Some pieces of equipment are so significant that you would need a Hercules-equivalent aircraft to move a fully equipped team.
The Chairman: Could you provide us with a document that elaborates on this and gives us the status of the different cities and when you expect all of them to be operational?
Mr. Harlick: Yes, we can.
Senator Day: The reference to the various cities you have mentioned has been in relation to heavy urban search and rescue capability. Can I assume that there is light urban search and rescue capability in other cities as well?
Mr. Harlick: I do not believe you can make that assumption, senator. There might be a light or medium capacity, but I would not think so. The focus has been on heavy urban search and rescue capability because that is the most demanding.
This is a groundbreaking development in Canada. One has to give full credit to the Vancouver area. Stimulated by their concern about earthquakes, they started the development of this some years ago. They built that kind of capacity because it would deal with the worst situation. Some of the provinces, Quebec in particular, are more interested in looking at light and medium situations. Those teams are easier to equip and less costly, and the training can be done faster. If you look at the hazards in a given area, the light or medium capability might be more likely to be used, so they may not have to train up and invest in the heavy capacity.
The Chairman: To finish off, could we please have the geographic range or the travel time? What geographic areas are they expected to cover, and how long would it take to get to the extremities? If we could have that before next week, that would be helpful.
Senator Banks: In your notes, the terms USAR and HUSAR are interchangeable. Is there no such thing as USAR on one hand and HUSAR on the other hand?
Mr. Harlick: The USAR is the generic entity, an urban search and rescue team, and then the capacity would be light, medium or heavy. The focus to date in Canada has been principally heavy. In the December 2001 budget, the $20 million over six years was granted for a heavy team. Thinking has evolved since that time, and in discussions with the provinces and municipalities it has become clear that there is a desire on the part of some jurisdictions to be more flexible in terms of whether they go directly to heavy or whether they build through the continuum of light, medium and on to heavy.
These activities are in the developmental stage. Vancouver is the most developed, and it is internationally certified. Alberta is next. Toronto is completing its equipment purchase capacity, and Montreal and Halifax are probably at the planning board stage or the idea-development stage. We are dealing directly with them, and we have the money, given by the government, to be provided to them, and we do that via the JEPP.
Senator Banks: Does it go directly to the province or to the municipality?
Mr. Harlick: We would deal directly with Vancouver and Toronto in the build up. We do so with the full knowledge and support of the provincial authority; and they are involved in that. They are in the information creativity loop. However, because the teams are based in a municipal setting, it makes sense to deal directly with that municipality.
Senator Banks: Do we expect the provinces to match the funds?
Mr. Harlick: We do this through the JEPP.
Ms. Janet Bax, Director General, Programs, Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness: It is not a matching fund. It would be, in this case, 75/25.
Just so that your expectations are not unduly raised, the issue of how much time it takes for one of these teams to go from Point A to Point B is currently being developed. The whole concept of USAR, from light through to heavy, is a fairly new one. It has not been fully developed anywhere in the world. It is being developed by this committee. Not all the procedures are laid out.
As Mr. Harlick pointed out, the heavy urban search and rescue team in Vancouver is the most developed, but as to how fast a light to medium as opposed to a heavy could move, that issue and others are being worked out.
Senator Banks: If the Vancouver team needed to get to Kelowna, and it needed to get there more quickly than it could drive to Kelowna, so it needed, in other words, to fly to Kelowna, could it do that today?
Ms. Bax: Yes. All of their equipment is palettized. It is on palettes, ready to go. Indeed, they could. If it were required to go to Peru or Turkey, they would need a bigger aircraft, so much would depend on the availability of the aircraft. The equipment is certainly ready for transportation.
Senator Banks: I would presume that equipment such as like cranes would be available wherever they are deployed. They would not have to transport a crane to Kelowna because there are already cranes there.
Senator Meighen: You mentioned large aircraft. Does that mean only Hercules?
Mr. Harlick: During the World Trade Center incident, a request was passed to the Vancouver team from the New Jersey authority asking them to get ready to go to the New Jersey area to help in New York City. In the end, that was not confirmed by the U.S. federal government. However, the aircraft that was identified for use to deploy the Vancouver team was a Herc out of Trenton.
Senator Banks: Whose Hercules was that?
Mr. Harlick: It was a Canadian Forces herc.
The Chairman: We know how many lifts it takes move the DART team with Hercs. Can you, in this paper, tell us how many lifts it takes to move these teams?
Mr. Harlick: Yes.
Senator Banks: During the blackout that happened here, I was struck, as were a number of people, by the fact that the government was issuing handwritten communiqués. The government offices that were involved directly at the time had no electrical means of even running a typewriter, let alone anything more sophisticated. You mentioned that you are to ensure that constitutional government continues properly. Can we assume that the next time something like that happens, we can take up a collection and buy the PCO or the PMO a portable generator so that they can turn on a light and not write a handwritten communiqué by candle light and paste a letterhead at the top of it? I am making light of it, but it was a serious situation.
Surely, to some degree, in ways that are much less frivolous than the example of a handwritten communiqué, it compromised the government's capacity to react in that situation and to be functional in that situation. They had no electricity. Can you fix that?
Mr. Harlick: The answer to that question, which is a business continuity question, is that it is up to the PCO to fix it, because it is their responsibility to ensure they have the ability to continue or resume their business.
Senator Banks: Are you not the Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness, and is not running the PCO which is responding to an emergency situation, a part of our critical infrastructure? Now you are saying that is their job.
Mr. Harlick: It is their job.
The Chairman: Did you send them a sharp note? That is what we want to know.
Mr. Harlick: Whether it was PCO, the example cited by the senator, or any other department that had a problem during that power outage or something similar, the important questions are: Do they have their business continuity plans well developed? Are they exercised; and are they managing that risk?
Senator Banks: Do you make sure that the answers to all those questions are yes?
Mr. Harlick: No, we do not. This is an issue of accountability. Just as each Deputy Minister or head of a department is accountable for the security of, say, the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Affairs or Environment Canada, under the purview of a policy, our responsibility is twofold. In the business continuity planning world, we have been asked by Treasury Board to develop the business continuity plan standard. In other words: How does one develop a plan that is pursuant to the government's security policy? That has been done. We have provided advice to a given organization as to how they might go about developing their own business plan.
Senator Banks: Has that advice been given to the PCO?
Mr. Harlick: They would have that advice. It is available to them. I believe that, after 9/11, all departments have been doing internal lessons learned exercises. I am confident that the Privy Council Office is doing a similar exercise to ensure that, the next time around, the generator will work. They do have a generator, and I understand there was a particular operational problem with it which resulted in the absence of electricity.
In an active emergency response mode, if a given department did not have enough electricity capacity, we would be looking for generators to augment their capacity and get them up and running, just as we did for other parties during the blackout. That would be another range of activities.
Senator Forrestall: Why was the central coordinating office, for that period of time, not moved across the river where there was electricity? Surely it was thought about. Why was it not moved?
Mr. Harlick: The answer depends on who was the central coordinating authority. We were that authority. We stayed where we were because we had electricity in our headquarters. We did not have it in one of the other buildings, and you have the minister's report on that. We did not lose power at 122 Bank at all.
As the lead agency responsible for organizing the federal government's response to assist Ontario, and to work with the Treasury Board in the graduated resumption of federal activity in the National Capital Region, which was at 50 per cent rate to conserve power, we were able to function throughout the entire period.
Senator Forrestall: I find it incredible that one building in all of Ottawa had power.
Mr. Harlick: No, I merely said that ours did. You asked why the central organizing authority did not go to Hull. I am saying that it did not need to go to Hull because we had power in our building. We were able to do our job during that period of time in our own headquarters from power supplied by generators.
Senator Forrestall: How did you communicate with anybody, other than yourselves?
Mr. Harlick: There was a certain amount of electricity in the system. There was some e-mail communication, and throughout it all, there was some telephone communication. Wireless and cellular modes suffered some degradation in the early period.
Senator Banks: In the event of a disaster of considerable magnitude that caused a shut down of part of the electrical system, and made a physical mess of the parliamentary precinct, from where would the government, the Prime Minister and the Privy Council Office, operate? In Alberta, we had a facility, which was closed and sold, called the Defenbunker, which was the place the government would go on the day of Armageddon. Now it seems like something out of a comic book, but at the time it was a fairly serious plan. Where would the government go now?
Mr. Harlick: The Privy Council Office, as part of its business continuity planning, would have plans and provisions for that.
Senator Banks: Do they?
Mr. Harlick: I believe they do, yes. We have been working with them over time under the auspices of this continuity of constitutional government provision in the Emergency Preparedness Act to ensure that essential institutions, not just executive government but constitutional government, so it does involve the court system, federal court, Supreme Court, both Houses of Parliament, have plans for that purpose.
Let me divide it into two parts, since I strayed into Parliament. We are working with officials of both the Senate and the House of Commons to ensure that, in the business continuity planning of both Houses, they have provisions for alternate locations and that sort of thing.
The Privy Council Office, as the secretariat to cabinet, would deal with alternate locations for cabinet meetings. They would determine what facilities would be available at what a certain distance beyond the impact or the degradation zone, particularly if communication could not work from 323-S or from across the street in the Langevin building.
Senator Kenny: Do you, in fact, know that they do this, Mr. Harlick? Have the departments gone through the process of lessons learned?
Mr. Harlick: There are 148 departments in the federal government and I know that some if them have gone through this, but I cannot list them or tell you how pervasive a practice it is post August 2003. That would be something that would be a good practice to follow.
The Chairman: You say you believe and hope that they are doing this, but you are not certain. You do not see it as part of your job to find out whether it is happening, or you do not have the resources to find out. What is the situation?
Mr. Harlick: I know that some are, but I do not know that all are. That is why I say that I believe this is the case. That is a role that we would consider. As you have indicated, it would take a certain amount of resources to do it. However, as part of our broader lessons learned exercise, we are talking to our core or larger departments and agencies in the government about what they have done.
The Chairman: Have you conducted an audit of these programs?
Mr. Harlick: No, we have not.
The Chairman: Is it part of your mandate to do so?
Mr. Harlick: I would say probably not, in a formal sense. I mentioned the role that we have in the development of a business continuity planning standard, but we are not out there to ensure that all departments adopt the standard, and thus practise the plan. At this stage, we do not have the capability to achieve that high level of organization.
The Chairman: Is it your role to develop best practices?
Mr. Harlick: Best practices do get built into the business continuity planning standard. Based on experience, one would adjust that standard over time. In that sense, practices that work better than others would be part of a feedback loop into the development and maintenance of the standard.
The Chairman: Where does the Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness fit into that feedback loop?
Mr. Harlick: There are some interdepartmental committees, including a coordination committee, which deal with emergency preparedness planning. Those provide be a forum where these items can be raised and discussed by the members, who are representatives of the core departments and agencies.
The Chairman: If I hear you correctly, you are telling me there is no place in Ottawa where one could go to find out how well developed are each department's plans.
Mr. Harlick: That would be my understanding.
The Chairman: Are there any plans that you know of to create such a place?
Mr. Harlick: There is no active plan, of which I am aware, to do that.
Senator Banks: To your direct personal knowledge, do the Privy Council Office and the Prime Minister's Office have in place now the plans, which you say would be included in your recommendations to government departments, to have those things in place in the event of an emergency? Do those two offices, specifically, now have the means of ensuring their continued operation by moving to safe, secure places of operation, and being able to run the country?
Mr. Harlick: That is certainly my understanding, yes.
Senator Banks: They do have?
Mr. Harlick: Yes.
Senator Banks: Thank you.
You talked about lessons learned, and the chairman has talked about lessons learned. The best lessons we learn are from, say, touching the hot stove or touching the wet paint on the fence. We learn not to do that again. We have had to learn from the floods in Saguenay and in Manitoba, the wind and ice storms, the tornadoes and hurricanes, 9/11, drought and all kinds of other events. Do you keep a compendium of some kind of lessons that were learned in those situations? Were there lessons learned in the hurricane's aftermath in Halifax, to use the most recent example, which can now be codified and made known to everybody? Is that information kept in an easily accessible place somewhere?
Mr. Harlick: We are doing it in our own exercise. We are coming to the final draft of a lessons-learned report for ourselves, based on all of the major events of 2003, starting from May — going through the hurricanes, the power outage, SARS, those kinds of things. We have that, and we will be finalizing that report, setting up an action plan, and then moving to implement and improve practices that have been identified as part of that exercise.
Senator Banks: I do not want to oversimplify, but if I were in Kitchener-Waterloo, could I have access to that list and have somebody from Halifax tell me about the mistakes that were made, or what was not done, or what could have been done better, and what they would do the second time around? Is there that sort of codification?
Mr. Harlick: For our own organization, yes, because it is our own lessons-learned report, and that is what it is designed to do.
Senator Banks: Do other first responders have access to it?
Mr. Harlick: It is designed for our own purposes, that is, how OCIPEP can do its own job better next time around based on lessons learned.
Senator Banks: Yes, but you are in an office. I am talking about the guys on the ground.
Mr. Harlick: I imagine they would also be doing the same kind of exercise. The HRM, the Halifax Regional Municipality, one would expect, would operate in the same mode, and their emergency coordinator would prepare a list or a report for the city.
Senator Banks: Do others have access to yours?
Mr. Harlick: Yes, it is a standard document. How useful it would be to them, based on our situation, I do not know, but it is something that we have. We will be putting this into play interdepartmentally, because we will want to have some interdepartmental discussions among the emergency management community and the federal government as to some of these lessons learned and about how they will try to share other peoples' lessons-learned experiences with us. We are all mutually interdependent in this exercise.
As well, some of the items that come up are interdepartmental. You cannot solve the problem or implement the lessons learned unless you can go and talk to somebody else. Two or three people may work together. That is where we would use this interdepartmental forum. It is a long-standing forum, called an interdepartmental coordination committee, and it has 30-odd members from the major departments and agencies in town. This is one of the functions we can fulfil in dealing with certain issues at a common table. In the aftermath of the series of recent events, some of these points have already come up at the table.
Mr. Gary O'Bright, Director General, Operations, Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness: We try to prepare a lessons-learned report for every event. I agree with you, that is the only way we learn. There is absolutely no restriction, as far as I can see, on sharing those lessons learned with others. We certainly do it in both the physical and cyber worlds. We have a cyber event. We develop the lessons learned, and we are prepared to share those with our provincial colleagues and others.
The Chairman: Has someone from OCIPEP geared up a meeting with people in Halifax to find out what they learned from the recent hurricane? Do you have an information spot where other people who want to prepare for hurricanes can go and find out those lessons, rather than them having to call Halifax?
Mr. Harlick: We have not yet organized that kind of event. One might fairly say that Halifax is still coping with the aftermath.
The Chairman: How about the ice storm?
Mr. Harlick: I believe there was a lessons-learned item on that in 1998.
The Chairman: If another ice storm hits, is there a file in your office to which you can refer and determine what you should look out for?
Mr. O'Bright: That kind of information is pretty scattered. It predated the office. We have become very aggressive in developing lessons learned since September 11. There is some scattered documentation about the ice storm, but I certainly do not have anything on the actual development of hard lessons learned from that event. However, we have been doing that for events from September 11 on.
The Chairman: Do you have the book on SARS? We know that SARS will recur in Canada in a couple of months. Are you set so that, when it hits the next city, those who live there can come to you and you will be able to tell them about the lessons learned in Toronto?
Mr. Harlick: We were incorporating SARS lessons in our own lessons-learned exercise, which we are now completing now. We would also collectively have the benefit, in the Government of Canada, of a lessons-learned exercise from Health Canada. Health Canada was the lead federal department for SARS. We acted in support of them. We are incorporating the lessons we derived from that into our lessons-learned exercise, and they will be doing the same thing. That means the collectivity will be stronger and better off from that lessons-learned exercise.
The Chairman: Will you have a document or information at a site or a place where people can go so they do not have to relearn the Toronto lessons?
Mr. Harlick: We can certainly ask Health Canada about whether they have, in their lessons-learned exercise, information that can be put on a Web site, for example. I do not know whether that is available.
The Chairman: Do you know if they will be consulting with the Province of Ontario and asking Dr. D'Cunha and Dr. Basrur about their experiences and what they would have done differently, what they were missing, and how they could have spotted people arriving in the country at the airport with SARS? You might also ask if they have proper quarantine facilities in place now and whether those are adequate? Are those kinds of questions being asked of the people in Toronto so that other cities do not have to go through the same problem? If so, who is asking?
Mr. Harlick: People from Health Canada would be asking those kinds of questions.
The Chairman: Do you know that they are asking?
Mr. Harlick: I do not know for certain, but my expectation, having read the Naylor Commission report in which those items are identified, is that this would be the route for the federal government to take. We will see what Mr. Justice Campbell comes up with at the provincial level. The Naylor report is an excellent route map for enhancing the emergency planning and response capacity in the area of infectious disease. Health Canada will use that to augment their capacity and it may be caught up in the changes that the government may wish to make based on the Naylor recommendations. That is an intimate component of going forward because of the particular recommendations that Dr. Naylor has made for the public health authority.
Senator Atkins: I would like to ask about the recent hurricane in Halifax. At what stage were you alerted to the fact that we were faced with a major crisis? There were weather reports leading up to the hurricane but, as it turned out, they were not accurate in terms of wind velocity. When were you aware of the realities? Could you take us through the plan of action that you took?
Mr. Harlick: Certainly. With the indulgence of the chair I will ask Mr. O'Bright to do that because he was on the ground in that process.
Mr. O'Bright: We begin tracking most of these storms far out in the Atlantic Ocean. Normally, they are simply tropical depressions that pick up speed and become tropical storms. We were tracking Hurricane Juan — as well as Isobel and Kate — when it was considerably southeast of Bermuda. In respect of such storms, we maintain close contact with the National Hurricane Centre in Miami and daily contact with the Canadian Hurricane Centre in Halifax. A great deal of related information is posted on their Web sites, so we closely monitor the progress of these events.
As Hurricane Juan passed Bermuda, we were in touch with our regional offices in Halifax, Charlottetown, Fredericton and, subsequently, St. John's to alert them to the fact that the tropical storm had been upgraded to hurricane status and that it was projected on a line northwest and expected to hit the Maritimes in a certain number of days. Prince Edward Island was not as aware of the progress of Juan as Nova Scotia, and we were able then to tip off the emergency measures organizations. We talked to our regional offices each day and they dealt directly with the emergency measures organizations in both Halifax and Charlottetown. It gives us a bit of an edge in terms of dealing with emergency personnel in Nova Scotia and in Prince Edward Island.
As Hurricane Juan continued its path northwest, we continued to monitor the storm and engage other officials in its potential impacts. The information on wind velocities and hurricane strength is relayed by us to the experts because are not hurricane experts. We rely on the experts at the hurricane centres to advise us on wind velocities and strengths of the storms. As Juan aimed itself at Nova Scotia and then at Prince Edward Island, we continued to work closely with the emergency measures organizations through our own regional office staff.
After the storm hit the provinces and moved through, we maintained regular contact with the emergency measures personnel in those areas and with federal officials. We held teleconference calls with federal staff in those regions as well as with provincial authorities concerning Hurricane Juan and then Hurricane Kate when it was aimed temporarily at Newfoundland. In that way, everyone was coordinated in preparation for an impact.
Senator Atkins: At what stage was the lead agency or department determined?
Mr. O'Bright: For all hurricane activity, OCIPEP takes the lead to coordinate the federal response.
That would hold true for other natural disasters such as an earthquake. OCIPEP would immediately be the lead. In the case of power outages, Natural Resources Canada addresses the problem because of the electrical grid.
Senator Atkins: Did emergency measures have to draw on any of the supplies that you have stored in the regions?
Mr. Harlick: I would clarify that we do not have supplies of our own in the regions.
Senator Atkins: You have access to the supplies in the regions.
Mr. Harlick: It depends on what supplies you are talking about because there could be other federal assets in place such as the federal emergency stockpile of Health Canada.
Senator Atkins: Were those supplies called upon?
Mr. Harlick: I believe that, during the power outage, those medical supplies were not required. We were able to find and provide generator resources needed by some entities, such as Air Canada. In the end, they found another solution to the emergency. The Canadian Forces provided generators for the hospital and another entity in Kingston.
Mr. O'Bright: We did the same thing in Prince Edward Island when Hurricane Juan went through. Our regional office was able to work with the Coast Guard to find generators to help people in difficulty.
Senator Forrestall: In respect of hurricanes in Atlantic Canada, could you tell me why it is that so many people in the Nova Scotia corridor are so angry? Is it because of the length of time it took to restore power? There were power outages throughout the city and not a complete blackout. Was an explanation given? Did your office tell anyone why it took so long? When the storm began, 90 per cent of Nova Scotians slept through it. That was the only sleep they had for the next 10 days.
Mr. Harlick: The explanations that we are aware of would be received either through the media our directly from our staff in Halifax, who were talking across the hall to the emergency management staff. The explanations do not materially differ from those available in the media.
Senator Forrestall: What was the explanation?
Mr. Harlick: A large number of trees came down, breaking the lines. It took a great deal of heavy lifting power to remove the debris from those downed lines, which then had to be repaired or replaced. That put a tremendous strain on the supplies and on the number of electricians required. Forty 40 crews came up from Maine to assist crews from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. It still took that long to complete the repairs, as the senator noted.
Senator Forrestall: Could you please find out why it took so long to restore the power? That is the most important lesson, obviously.
Mr. Harlick: I would respectfully submit to the committee that Nova Scotia Power Corp bore the responsibility for restoring power.
Senator Forrestall: Your office is the lead federal "bus driver" and I can understand your answer here if no one told you why it took so long.
Mr. Harlick: The explanation I gave you was what we got from provincial officials in Halifax via our regional office. It is the same point as in Ontario during the blackout: Who restored power? Ontario Hydro and OPG. They generate it, they own it and they will have to restore it because they know best how to do that, and they needed a large amount of help to do it, but it is not the federal government's domain. One must be fairly clear. This is an accountability issue, and if these lights went out and there were a problem, it would be the Ottawa branch of Ontario Hydro that we would all look to restore power in Ottawa.
Senator Forrestall: Obviously, no one gave you an explanation.
Senator Cordy: I am from Nova Scotia also, but I abandoned my family and came to Ottawa where I had power, as they reminded me. Nova Scotians were pleased to have the support and the help of not only other provinces like New Brunswick, but also of another country, the U.S., specifically the State of Maine, as well as the army. Over 800 members of our military were in the streets and people were very pleased to see them. While I understand the frustration of those who waited over a week to get power, the work that was done was magnificent. People worked long hours, day after day after day.
However, my question has to do with the comment of Senator Forrestall. Part of your job is infrastructure protection, yet, the statistics I got from the Americans — and I do not see that the Canadian statistics would be any different — show that 85 to 90 per cent of infrastructure is owned by private industry. You gave your answer about Nova Scotia Power, and the same would be true of all the provinces. Do you have meetings with private industry?
In the case of Nova Scotia, the hurricane caused the electrical blackout, but the blackout in Ontario was not caused by a hurricane. I am not sure if we really know what caused it. The infrastructure in Canada is aging, and I do not want to say deteriorating, but we certainly risk having more blackouts and other failures. Have you had any discussions with private industry regarding what to do in the event of an emergency, or with regard to upgrading infrastructure?
Mr. Harlick: Yes. For the last couple of years, since our creation, we have been involved in increasing amounts of discussion with critical infrastructure sector representatives, owners and operators.
Based on the experience of Y2K, we consider at the present time that Canada's critical infrastructure is divided into about six sectors. Obviously one is energy — oil and gas, and electricity, so we will stick with that one. We work closely with Natural Resources Canada, the energy department in the federal government, to understand the nature of the critical infrastructure in energy, the oil and gas world. We and NRCan meet regularly with the dozen or so oil and gas associations that represent the various segments of the oil and gas sector, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, the pipeline people, and the people who generate, distribute and sell, for purposes of understanding the nature of that sector, the kinds of risk that sector faces, whether from vulnerabilities from the infrastructure, or other threats and hazards it faces. We have done this in the banking area and in transportation, as well as in telecommunications. In the latter we work with Industry Canada.
As a practical example, we have developed some threat scenarios that we use as we walk through, with those various sectors, how that threat scenario would potentially impact that given sector. Do they have information on this kind of thing? How would they respond to that kind of threat or hazard? How are they organizing themselves on that, and what can we and they do mutually to better manage that risk?
The answer is, yes, there is close contact with these key sectors.
Senator Banks: I come from and I represent Alberta, which, I am proud to say, has a number of public broadcasters, including the oldest public broadcaster in the country, which pre-dates the CBC somewhat. The CKOA radio network has 17 radio stations that pretty well cover the province. In the event of an emergency, say a tornado, which is what we have had, or other similar potential problem, the emergency measures people can literally push a button and broadcast a message on almost every radio and television station, commercial, private and public, in the province, which covers a total of some 70 broadcasters. They can interrupt programming and broadcast from every broadcast capability, and through cable, an emergency voice message with instructions. It is cheap, and the federal government funds it to a degree, as well as the Government of Alberta, I believe.
This seems to me, as a proud Albertan, a very good model to follow. To your knowledge, do similar programs exist, or is there a plan to initiate such programs in other parts of the country?
Mr. Harlick: To my knowledge, there is not a similar comprehensive system in another province. There are some local alerting broadcasting systems, such as the older aural siren, because, of course, the impact of an emergency is often more local than not.
However, you have raised an important point, because, as the potential for disasters or emergencies grows, either the natural kind or the deliberately induced kind, the need to get messages to the public, both about the problem and some of the actions that can be taken, becomes increasingly important.
The government, in its December 2001 budget, set aside some money for emergency management and critical infrastructure protection, and we and 11 other departments have received that money. Industry Canada, because it is responsible for telecommunications and also has an emergency telecommunications function in one of its branches, has received money for some pilot project work on public alerting systems, that is, how to get the message out to the public.
Related to that is how to have assured communications among those who really have to communicate in the aftermath of a disaster. It may not be possible to do so because the communications capacity is down or it is overloaded by everyone trying to use the phone.
I am aware of some efforts that were made in the past to achieve some kind of public broadcaster messaging that is nation wide. It has some particular technological challenges and some financial challenges. In some of the proposals in the past they have run up against some concerns raised by the CRTC, often related to its funding. These are the issues at play at the moment. Industry Canada has the lead in that.
Senator Banks: Why would you need a pilot program when one has been operating in Alberta for years? It is a system that has overcome all of those problems; it has overcome the CRTC, the funding, the mechanical, and all of the broadcasters have signed on.
Mr. Harlick: Are you talking about radio now?
Senator Banks: I am talking about radio, television and cable.
Mr. Harlick: We can look into that and find the answer to that question.
Senator Banks: In the event of a national emergency, could the CBC and Radio Canada be commandeered?
Mr. Harlick: There is a provision in the Broadcasting Act for the government to request the CBC to carry certain public information messages. That is done via Industry Canada, which is the lead for that function. It has the ability to do that.
Senator Banks: "Request" is a nice word.
Mr. Harlick: Yes. They will get it done.
Senator Meighen: I believe it would be fair to say that, in this country, we have a bottom-up emergency preparedness system. I will come back to that in a moment from the perspective of those at the bottom. However, going to the top, to Ottawa, where you are located, and given the nature of the conversations that have just gone on, what strikes me is that there is a spoken and perhaps unspoken continuing confusion about what the role is or more appropriately should be of OCIPEP.
I would have thought, and tell me if I am wrong and if it is outside your mandate or not something you want to do or something inappropriate, that you would be sort of an Auditor General of preparedness and at the top of your list of priorities would be post-operative debriefing, to determine what went right and wrong; widely disseminating your report; convening conferences and perhaps paying for some people to attend who are implicated in the emergency to discuss what went right and wrong; and to prod government, other government organizations and local emergency preparedness authorities to lead the way. I do not hear that. Tell me if I am wrong on that as it relates to your role from the Ottawa perspective.
Mr. Harlick: You used two concepts. You started off with the idea of an Auditor General and you ended up with the idea of a lead.
Senator Meighen: I would suggest that you would be the lead spokesperson. I do not see them as being mutually exclusive.
Mr. Harlick: As a public servant, knowing the power of the Auditor General and knowing that she can compel and do certain things, to be an Auditor General of emergency preparedness in the federal government, is a kind of responsibility, if it were ever to be thought of and granted, that would require some strong powers.
Senator Meighen: I do not wish to interrupt you, but I did say "sort of an Auditor General." I am not arguing that you should have the powers of the Auditor General. I am trying to get a concept across of a body that reviews, assesses and makes a constructively critical report.
Mr. Harlick: I was using that as an example to distinguish between those that can compel and those that lead through cooperation and example. The latter is, in the current system, the way it is done.
You talked about prodding awareness. The office does a considerable amount of that. Public awareness is done through our public communications and affairs programs. We participate and co-sponsor in conferences. Ms. Bax will be speaking at an emergency preparedness conference in Vancouver next Monday. I was delivering a panel discussion on critical infrastructure protection last Saturday morning in Vancouver in the rain. There is a range of products and activities we can do and do on that front.
We made reference to the interdepartmental coordination committee. This is a structure of 20 to 30 representatives of departments in the federal government that meets regularly under our chairmanship to discuss issues of common interest to emergency managers.
We are developing a number of other programs that require a strong degree of outreach and cooperation. I would mention the national critical infrastructure assurance program, an item we may come to in the discussion, led by Ms. Bax. We have are undergoing an extensive outreach and consultation exercise to build that program and concept.
To come to the nub of the point, which is are we doing enough to ensure others are following the track and the ideas there is always the ability to do more. There is no doubt about it. Part of it is resource constraint and part is many people in this town are busy and trying to get them to focus in a consistent way is difficult.
The challenge that you have posed, senator, is an appropriate and good challenge to us on that point. We do a pretty good job in this regard, but a better job could be done.
To talk about the lack of clarity in the role of OCIPEP, the role of OCIPEP, as I have set it out in my remarks today, comes from six lines in a press release of February 2001. It is not recognized in statute. Only the minister is recognized. A predecessor organization was created by statute, but in the Reorganization Act, 1996, it was rolled into the Department of National Defence.
From a legislator's point of view, you ask what we can do. In many cases, you would go to the statute dealing with the organization. That lays out the roles. After that, you go to policy frameworks.
Some of these issues are now coming back under consideration given the current threat requirement and the importance of saying that there should be a stronger role for organizations, such as ourselves in our particular area, to lead the way and to be able to tell others whether they are collectively meeting the bar, the test on that. To do that requires leadership, resources and the buy-in of the community.
On the latter point, there is an increasing amount of that as the seriousness of our future risk environment is increasingly realized, whether we are talking about, in our world, cyber concerns, emergency management or disasters — and 2003 has given us many examples — as well as this other, newer area called critical infrastructure protection. In that particular case, it is clear that we are setting the pace and standard in that area as part of the mandate given in 2001.
Senator Meighen: I agree with you that, from what we heard, at least, for first responders, an increasing buy-in is required. However, for you to move ahead in the area that you just described, is it substantially a resources problem? What is your operating budget and how many people work for OCIPEP? I assume you have flow-through or transfer funds.
Mr. Harlick: I will distinguish between the two. Our total budget is about $52 million. The operating budget is about $40 million. We have an authorized or target establishment of close to 300 full-time employees both in Ottawa and in the 10 regional offices.
Senator Meighen: Is that enough to fulfil the role that you outlined?
Mr. Harlick: One is always wary of using parliamentary committees to plead for funds, and I will not do that.
Senator Meighen: Everybody else does.
Mr. Harlick: We are not supposed to do that, and there is an audience that that will hold me to that.
Two things are important here. First, on the subject of the framework for action, there needs to be a partnership and an agreed approach to doing things with the provinces and territories, for instance, so that you can implement that role. We have an initiative called the national readiness and response framework that we are working up with the emergency measures organizations in the provinces. We are using Alberta as the lead provincial representative because they have a good, organized approach to managing emergencies and crises in Alberta.
We are setting out the principles, practices and elements that the provinces should do to cooperate with the federal government and vice-versa to manage this area of risk. That framework must be supplemented with activity. That is a matter of resourcing.
I would have no compunction about saying that, based on our professional exposure to the issue, in the world of emergency management, there is a need for greater resourcing. I am not saying that that applies to us. I am not making that argument.
However, I am saying that, in that world — and you have heard this on the road — in the past cutbacks in any area of government tended to happen first in emergency management. We are also coming up against increasingly complex, difficult and expensive emergencies, so there is a capacity challenge. There is a sustainability challenge. There is also a demographic challenge as emergency managers have survived the cuts as they have gotten older. There are resource challenges. There is a challenge to get the game plan right to meet this new and more threatening environment.
Indeed, additional resources would help the collectivity perform better. There is no doubt about that.
Ms. Bax: Perhaps the silver lining is the kind of influence we have through some of our programs. I refer, for instance, to the JEPP, the Joint Emergency Preparedness Program. We do get together as the federal government and all provinces and we decide what will be national priorities on a yearly basis. That provides us with the opportunity of talking about where we will put the little bit of money that we do have. In that sense, we certainly play a leadership role. It is a sad but true fact that some of the provincial JEPP money — it is a cost-shared program — goes to hiring personnel. In some provinces, the capacity has been cut back so far that they actually use the JEPP to hire people in their emergency preparedness offices. Therefore, the funds have not always reached the municipalities. We have been generous in allowing that to happen, to build up the provincial capacity before moving into the municipalities.
In an area like training where we have a lot of money, where we have taken a leadership role and where we have the national training strategy, you would not be surprised to hear that provinces chafe: "Do not tell us what to do with our training money. We will do it."
We are fighting that. We are saying we want to train to national standards. That is what you have asked us to do and that is what we will do. We are trying to pull together teams that are not just multi-disciplinary but are from various regions. We will bring them to Ottawa or take them to Winnipeg or to whatever centre and train them together. That will mitigate the kind of thing that happened in New York City where firefighters came in from various states but they could not operate with one another.
That is what we are working towards. It takes time to build cohesion. We have not had a long tradition of working together but, through the program monies that we have, we are starting to build cohesion. We are starting to build a need to work towards standards, to work towards interoperability, and to do that through our programs. I think you are right about where we are, but some steps have been taken with the new program money.
Senator Meighen: That is encouraging. Do I understand you to say national standards have been set down? If so, to what extent have the parties bought into those standards?
Ms. Bax: On a program like USAR, we are absolutely striving to have national standards. In emergency preparedness, in all its facets, we would also like to do that. We would like to work with the Canadian Standards Association to achieve a particular standard.
That will not happen overnight, so we are building a consensus towards that. We are using our federal-provincial meetings to do that. The CBRN equipment purchase, unfortunately, received only two years of funding. We got a group together and we asked what equipment is needed to build the chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear capacity required in Canada. We asked: What should everyone get and what are the standards towards which we should build? We had that general discussion. It was much more useful than each jurisdiction going out and doing it.
What we would like to do now is what the RCMP were able to do. They were able to buy the equipment themselves and divvy it out among the various RCMP detachments around the country. We cannot do that because we work with each individual province. However, we are working towards a standard.
Senator Meighen: You are working towards a standard?
Ms. Bax: That is correct, we are working towards a standard. We do not have a standard set in all cases, but everybody agrees that we should strive for interoperability and standardization. You do not have to buy the same piece of equipment, but it has to work to the same standard. In all these emergencies that we hear about where first responders cross over borders, that movement reinforces that need.
Senator Meighen: This is an over-simplified question but, on a scale of 1 to 10, where are you in reaching an agreement and on establishing these standards? Are you at 1 or at 6? I do not mean the number of provinces; I mean along the continuum of the process.
Ms. Bax: On a scale of 10, I would say we are at 3 to 5.
Senator Meighen: You have been at it for how long?
Ms. Bax: This discussion about standards has not been going on for even a year, but there was talk about it before then. Basically, the provinces were doing their own thing.
Senator Meighen: I realize that, but, unfortunately, the disasters and the crises have arisen. Those events have surely rendered public opinion pretty sensitive to this issue. Politicians do sometimes respond to public opinion.
Ms. Bax: If I may, senator, through our education and training, that is precisely what we are doing — we are moving towards standards. We are training towards standards. We are building a made-in-Canada training program that has standards built in. I can tell you that, at the end of the six-year period for which we have this discrete funding for CBRN, we will absolutely have standards.
Senator Meighen: Thank you. I hope I am around in six years to find out.
Senator Day: I thought you only had two years for CBRN?
Ms. Bax: We have two years of funding for equipment, unfortunately. We have six years for the other elements. For the USAR, we have six years. For training and education, we have six years. For some reason, it was decided that there would only be two years of funding for the CBRN equipment.
The Chairman: Colleagues, I have received a suggestion that we take a pause for the evening and that we continue next week when Mr. Harlick will be back with fresh troops. Is the committee agreeable?
Senator Day: Perhaps Ms. Bax and Mr. O'Bright will be so interested that they will want to come back, too. We could have a table for five.
The Chairman: I will leave that to the clerk to work out.
Thank you, Mr. Harlick and colleagues, for coming. Your remarks have been of great assistance to the committee in better understanding the work that you and your colleagues do. We will continue our study of OCIPEP and first responders next week. If you have any questions or comments, you can go to our Web site at www.sen-sec.ca where we will post witness testimony as well as confirmed hearing schedules. Otherwise, you may contact the clerk of the committee by calling 1-800-267-7362 for further information or assistance in contacting the members of the committee.
The committee adjourned.