Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Security and Defence
Issue 4 - Evidence - Meeting of January 28, 2008
OTTAWA, Monday, January 28, 2008
The Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence met this day at 4:02 p.m. to examine and report upon the national security policy of Canada.
Senator Colin Kenny (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: I call the meeting to order. My name is Colin Kenny and I chair the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence.
Sitting on my immediate right is Senator David Tkachuk, from Saskatchewan. He was appointed to the Senate in June 1993. Over the years, he has been a businessman, public servant and teacher. He is deputy chair of this committee. Sitting on his immediate right is Senator Michael Meighen, from Ontario. Senator Meighen was appointed to the Senate in September 1990. He is a lawyer and a member of the bars of Quebec and Ontario. He is the chair of the Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs as well as a member of the Banking, Trade and Commerce and the Fisheries and Oceans committees. At the end of the table is Senator Nancy Ruth, a feminist activist from Ontario and a senator since March 2005. She is a member of the Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration Committee, the National Finance Committee and the Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs. At the far end of the table is Senator Grant Mitchell, from Edmonton. He has long been recognized as one of Alberta's foremost political, community and business leaders. He was appointed to the Senate in March 2005. He is a member of the Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources Committee and the National Finance Committee.
[Translation]
Beside him, Senator Pierre Claude Nolin, who is from the province of Quebec. He is a lawyer and he was appointed to the Senate in June 1993. Senator Nolin is currently Vice-Chair of the Senate Special Committee on the Anti- terrorism Act and also Vice-Chair of the Senate Standing Committee on Energy, Environment and Natural Resources.
[English]
Beside Senator Nolin is Senator Rod Zimmer, from Winnipeg. He has had a long and distinguished career in business and philanthropy. He has been a member of the Senate since August 2005 and sits on the Transport and Communications Committee.
We are continuing our review of Canada's nation-wide readiness to respond to man-made and natural disasters. In March 2004, we completed an initial study and the report indicated that Canada was not well prepared to deal with national emergencies. The committee has since undertaken a review of the current state of emergency response capabilities to check on the pace of progress and all levels of emergency response organizations, from local to federal.
Our first group of witnesses today is from the City of Ottawa. They are here to discuss emergency management operations from a local perspective while providing details on the interrelationship between local first responders, their provincial emergency management counterparts and the lines of support and communication with the federal government. The group includes John Ash, Manager, Office of Emergency Management Ottawa, Rick Larabie, Fire Chief, Ottawa Fire Services, Sue O'Sullivan, Deputy Chief, Operations Support, Ottawa Police Service, and Anthony DiMonte, Chief, Ottawa Paramedic Service. Welcome to the committee. You have five minutes to make an opening statement. Mr. Ash, please proceed.
John Ash, Manager, Office of Emergency Management, City of Ottawa: Before I begin, I wish to thank the chair and committee members for the opportunity to testify today. We wish you continued success in improving the safety and security of all Canadians.
We all know that Ottawa is a beautiful and historic city. It is unique in that it is home both to municipal and federal levels of government. The City of Ottawa considers emergency management an issue of significant importance for the residents, businesses and visitors. The city has made significant investments in each of its emergency services, while ensuring a coordinated and integrated response to managing large-scale events and emergencies. In 2002, the City of Ottawa established a corporate-wide Emergency Management Program involving all city departments focussed on improving the city's ability to prevent, prepare, respond and recover from emergencies. Through the Emergency Management Program, the City of Ottawa invested roughly $5 million on multi-departmental initiatives and leveraged nearly $2 million in additional Joint Emergency Preparedness Program, JEPP, funding. Examples of the Emergency Management Program's 29 separate initiatives include the following: development of a comprehensive response plan and supporting plan; establishment of a public education and preparedness program; enhancement of a multi-agency Chemical Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosive incidents, CBRNE, response plan and capacity; initial development of a multi-agency urban search and rescue capability; soon-to-be implemented crisis management technology to aid in the information and decision-management processes; and establishment of a public notification system to improve how we communicate with residents and businesses during emergencies.
These investments have and will significantly contribute to the safety and security of all residents and visitors to the Ottawa region. This financial commitment is overshadowed only by the investment of staff resource time contributed by each and every city department.
The city understands that emergency preparedness is everyone's responsibility and requires the involvement of all. To this end, partnership engagement is critical. Anyone would be hard pressed to find a more complex environment than Canada's national capital. Any major event or disaster in the nation's capital may directly impact all three levels of government, multiple police and security agencies, fire and paramedic services, not to mention specific federal departments such as Health Canada, National Research Council Canada, Public Safety Canada, Agriculture and Agri- Food Canada and the Department of National Defence, to name a few.
In response to this complexity, the City of Ottawa, the City of Gatineau, RCMP, CSIS and other federal agencies along with provincial police from Ontario and Quebec have made significant progress on developing formal lines of communication, decision and information-dissemination processes to enhance coordination in response to emergency and planned events. These steps the city and its response partners have taken represent positive progress on building a practical framework for integrated response and operations in the National Capital Region.
Looking broader than an integrated response, the city faces further complexity as a direct result of being the nation's capital, home to Canada's Parliament. Unlike London, Washington, Canberra and other long-standing federal national governments, the Canadian government has not defined its expectation or addressed its impact on the local level of government.
The City of Ottawa is not like any other municipality in Canada. The city must plan for and manage multiple events and impacts by nature of its shared geography with the nation's capital. Events such as state visits, world summits, Canada Day celebrations and the many other gatherings and events held in the nation's capital all have an impact on municipal services. In all of these events, the city works with its partners to ensure safety and protection of its citizens and, in many cases, at the cost of the local taxpayer. In some cases, the various human resource impacts of these events also require various city emergency services to reallocate staff from their regular duties, potentially impacting core city services.
To address these issues, the city believes a formal agreement should be established with the federal government to address Ottawa's unique situation and collectively minimize the impact of risk and the time and effort associated with ad hoc planning and reporting.
In addition to the special events occurring in the nation's capital, there is a greater consideration: Both the City of Ottawa and the federal government occupy the same geographical space and have mutual and perhaps conflicting dependences and requirements. To illustrate this point, I ask: Has the federal government considered its dependency on municipal services in the context of emergency events, continuity of service or constitutional services? What are the federal government's critical infrastructure requirements and are they in conflict with the City of Ottawa? How are these conflicts resolved and who covers the costs?
To answer these and other related questions requires coordinated dialogue. I should note that, to date, the city had had preliminary discussion with the Privy Council Office on this topic. However, formal recognition and the commitment of time and resources by all departments are critical to deal with this complex issue. It is in our collective best interest to work on this together to be prepared.
In conclusion, the city has taken a comprehensive approach to emergency management that encompasses prevention/preparedness planning, response and recovery. The federal government's involvement and commitment are integral to the city's success in creating a robust, integrated, coordinated response to emergencies and disasters. Typically, when disasters or emergencies strike, the federal government's role would be focused on setting broader policy or providing support to the provinces. However, when emergencies happen in the City of Ottawa, there may be direct impacts to the continuity of government or various federal departments and, naturally, a heightened dependence on the City of Ottawa for services for response and recovery.
The city believes this dependency and expectation should be defined to ensure that collectively we are ready. In response to this unique relationship that exists between the City of Ottawa and the federal government, the city believes that a formal agreement should be established to define expectations and address respective gaps.
The national capital is a complex environment and the city understands that it is one of the key players in the security and protection of life and property in our nation's capital. The city takes its role seriously and, as noted, has invested significantly in the area of emergency management. We believe the federal government should be playing a more active role in partnership with the city to ensure that gaps are addressed and expectations are met. We stand ready to respond and broaden our relationship with the federal government.
Thank you on behalf of the City of Ottawa, myself and my colleagues here today for the opportunity to speak to you this evening.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Ash. Several senators wish to ask questions. We will begin with Senator Nolin.
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Ash, you have painted a fairly complete portrait of the situation. You have already answered some of my questions which, by the way, will be more general in nature. Some of my colleagues may wish to explore certain sectors of responsibility in more detail. Please feel at ease to answer my questions in either one of our two official languages.
Do I understand that your greatest challenge, at this time, is your relationship with the federal government? Or is your greatest challenge the proximity of the province of Quebec? I am trying to determine what your greatest challenge is, if you had to choose one.
Anthony DiMonte, Chief, Ottawa Paramedic Service: If you do not mind, Mr. Chair, I will reply for Mr. Ash. The relationship is not defined. The federal government treats all municipalities throughout Canada equally. As concerns Ottawa, it is a special jurisdiction. The government is a manager and leader at the national level, but the City of Ottawa is also its home; it has responsibilities that other cities do not, given that the federal government is based here. Initially, this is the relationship that needs to be defined.
Mr. Ash also spoke of the need to offer support to the municipality, given Ottawa's specific situation with regard to other municipalities.
Senator Nolin: I would like to explore this issue of the challenge represented by the relationship between the federal government and the National Capital. Have you consulted other world capitals to find out what their relationship is?
[English]
Sue O'Sullivan, Deputy Chief, Operations Support, Ottawa Police Service, City of Ottawa: When you speak about the City of Ottawa, we are speaking to the National Capital Region. When you talk emergency preparedness for this region, it is absolutely essential that we include our Quebec colleagues.
[Translation]
Absolutely. With the police, firefighters and the emergency centre.
[English]
Everything we do is coordinated with our Quebec partners.
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: So those are your two major challenges: the relationship with the federal structure and the relationship with your neighbours on the other side of the river.
[English]
Ms. O'Sullivan: When we talk about emergency planning — we talk about an all-hazards approach, be it terrorism or a natural disaster — when there is consequence-management required, every level of government, municipal, provincial and federal, has a mandate, and that is okay. We need to plan together strategically and leverage one another's assets and resources. The federal government has priorities in terms of that, but if they are not coordinated, there are limited assets. The reality is that in any crisis — be it natural disaster, terrorism or whatever the nature of the crisis is, Katrina or 9/11, for example — the first 24 to 48 hours will be local response.
When we talk about preparing, Canada's capacity to respond is integrally connected to local and provincial capacity. When we look at how the three levels of government will respond, we need to be planning together. I do not want the federal government's mandate, but I want an integral and continual relationship. We are pleased to be here together as a team because everything we do in the National Capital Region is done as a team.
[Translation]
In general, there are also colleagues from Quebec who work with the team.
[English]
It is very much a relationship. We can have the best policies and the best procedures, but if you do not make emergency planning a living entity, if you have to pull out a binder in the middle of a crisis, you are in trouble.
I can tell you how Mr. Larabie operates. I know his capacity. It is the same for the City of Ottawa and our paramedic services — our health partners. The other message we would like to send is that, whenever we think of emergency planning, we often think of police, fire, ambulance and city, but our health colleagues are critical to the challenges that are out there.
Often, when we hear of events, we think of announced events in which there has been an incident and we respond. However, in some cases, they are unannounced events. It might be the spike in admissions at the hospital that is your first trigger. When you say ``those challenges,'' you hit the nail on the head when the first word you used was ``relationship.''
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: I would like to come back to the relationship between the federal government and the municipality. I saw you nodding when you said that you had been in contact with your sister municipalities throughout the world and that they had a similar relationship. What did you discover when trying to determine how other capitals establish their relationship with the federal state?
[English]
Mr. Ash: As I commented on in my remarks, we are unique. For example, Washington has Arlington County and London has the City of London, where the federal government is integrally involved or has legislative authority to manage some of that day-to-day policing and so on. We do not have that relationship. Because of that, it has forced us to understand the power of relationships, to understand all the players involved and to engage them in dialogues to make sure we are on the same page.
It is not without its difficulties because of the complexity. We have two different provinces with their legislative mandates and requirements and so forth — federal-provincial-municipal — and it is complicated. However, at the grassroots-responder level, we understand that and we are all engaging. Whether it is our counterparts in the RCMP, CSIS or in Gatineau, all those players understand. We are unique; to compare us to other cities that are nations' capitals, there is no one really like us.
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: In short, you need to know in detail the scope of the federal operation on your territory. Have I understood clearly? You are missing this immense piece of the puzzle.
[English]
Mr. Ash: There are components we do well. In the broader sense, there is a gap that we need to improve upon. We need to be the same, integrated and linked together.
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: I have one last question. You mentioned, Ms. O'Sullivan, that it is no good having thick binders if one has to consult them when a problem arises, for example, once a fire has already broken out. How does this work in practice? Have you tested certain procedures using exercises? How do you plan to face these two challenges that you mentioned?
[English]
Ms. O'Sullivan: There is a multi-response. Let me allude to an initiative we have going in this region. I will not name it because we are going to launch publicly, probably in May.
First, from a law-enforcement perspective, in the National Capital Region we have something for the last three years called the National Capital Region Strategic Security Council, which is basically all the chiefs of police, including municipal, provincial, federal, military, et cetera.
Basically, we meet every six weeks to leverage, looking at the common denominator of safety and security. There are some major initiatives we have going under the governance structure — and it is a formal governance structure with terms of reference. One of those initiatives, which I will not name but will explain, is a framework of decision-making accountability in instances where there is high threat and no incident.
In other words, how do we share with our partners if we have a heightened security concern? How do we mobilize assets and resources when you cannot tell anyone about some of the things that are going on?
It is necessary to allude to that framework because part of that is that it allows us to meet once a month where we discuss different threat levels with our partners, including planned events or any concerns coming up. We can also look in the rear-view mirror with those monthly meetings. We look at lessons learned. For example, when President Bush was in town for the North American leaders' summit, we would do an after-action report and share that.
Everything I do as a police agency is interconnected to what the fire service, paramedic service and the cites of Ottawa and Gatineau do. It is important that we learn and train together as well. We just did a large tabletop scenario the other week that involved all of us. We are constantly using that.
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: When you use the expression ``scenario,'' do you mean that you have conducted an emergency simulation or exercise?
Ms. O'Sullivan: Yes.
Senator Nolin: You are not referring only to your superiors?
Ms. O'Sullivan: No, it is a proper training session, absolutely. The whole team takes part in this session.
Senator Nolin: Did many people consult their binders?
Ms. O'Sullivan: No, that is a problem.
[English]
It is a formal framework of decision accountability. It also allows us to do pre-consequence management if you have a potential threat. I do not want to go too much further. We would be happy to share after we launch publicly, but we wanted to give you a sense of how we bring that together. It is about that communication. As well, because we meet on a regular basis, we do little things.
For example, one meeting will be held at Mr. DiMonte's fabulous new paramedic facility so we get to see what assets he has there. When I say ``assets,'' I am not just talking about the Ottawa Police Service, but also the RCMP, CSIS, Quebec and Ontario provincial police, all of them. If there is a crisis in the National Capital Region, every one of us is familiar with all the assets that belong to both the Quebec and Ottawa sides in terms of how to support each other.
If I may take a fire moment, part of this scenario was that there were two incidents that had happened — one in Place du Portage and another by the Langevin Building. There is one Haz-Mat team that services those two areas, and it is Ottawa Fire Services, so you need to make a decision where that Haz-Mat team goes.
When you have a fully integrated team and you have set your strategic objectives — which are always, first, preservation of life and the safety and security of everyone — it becomes easy to facilitate those decisions. It sounds so easy, but it is one of the hardest things to achieve. It is a constant relationship you are building on — and we put our foot in it.
For example, if it is the Ottawa Police Service that drops the ball and certain information does not get shared, we come and say that we revisited a certain situation that happened in real life. We did not share it with you, but we are going to share it now because we have this dialogue. We are all top-secret cleared. I do not think five years ago we would have seen a necessity to have a fire chief top-secret cleared. It speaks to our commitment together as a team and our understanding of how that unfolds.
Having said all the good things, if I could piggyback on some of Mr. Ash's comments, the challenge we face as municipalities is that the national capacity rests at the local and provincial level. That capacity is expensive when you talk about CBRNE — Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosive. That is expensive, not just for the equipment, but the training, how we work together.
For example, I have a 32-person tactical team, which would deploy in a high incident. I cannot afford to train 1,300 police officers in level A, self-contained breathing apparatus, nor do I want to. They need to be face-fitted and tested. Ottawa Fire Services does that for us with our team because we train together all the time.
We had a case where a gentleman had set a place on fire. We had information that he had a gun. Obviously, Ottawa Fire Services will not go in until we can satisfy them that the person does not have a gun. Ottawa Fire Services pulls up. Our trained tactical team carries the self-contained breathing apparatus; they take the gear and go in.
My premise is the basic foundation of emergency planning. Any threat we face has that foundation piece. All communities in this country have different vulnerabilities, capacities and organizational structures, and different relationships, but there is a basic level. When we talk about building community capacity, there is the minimum and each community wants to strive to get to the maximum capacity. However, there will be difficult decisions because it takes monies.
The Canadian Federation of Municipalities put a paper out not long ago that also speaks to this. Municipalities are struggling financially to try to meet this. There are funding formulas in place. We are talking about agreed-upon funding formulas where we strategically plan together, understanding each other's roles and mandates but in a way that allows us as unique communities to start with the basics and build those building blocks, with assistance from the other two levels of government. That is where we are struggling.
We would love to have a heavy search and rescue here in full capacity in Ottawa, but that is an expensive thing to get in place. Our city has made the commitment to start building that block and work towards it. I want my hospitals to be well trained to be able to treat our people and our community should there be a biological or a chemical threat. We are all doing our part, but the capacity for this lies at these levels. That is where we are struggling.
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: We are well aware of your responsibilities. Mr. Chair, could you please put my name down for a second round of questioning? I know that I have used up 16 minutes of your valuable time.
[English]
The Chair: Senator Nolin is right. We have spent 16 and a half minutes. If you could tighten up the answers a bit, we would be grateful.
Senator Mitchell: I should like to pursue Senator Nolin's discussion of, if I can use this term, horizontal coordination, which is what you were alluding to.
Ms. O'Sullivan, you said that there is a strategic security council. It sounded to me as though it were made up of police chiefs and the military police. You also indicated that you meet regularly with the other features of emergency services. Are those meetings as structured? Are they structured in some kind of council as well, Mr. Ash?
Mr. Ash: Certainly, they are. It is called the steering committee. There are terms of reference that are well defined, with regular meetings and so on. It is very well structured and it is all about building those relationships and developing understanding so that we are all on the same page. It is specific to the all-hazards approach to emergency management within the national capital.
Senator Mitchell: That must be a core element of how you perform your risk assessments. Risk assessments are not static and must be upgraded all the time. That is my first question. What is the process of upgrading, reviewing and revisiting risk assessment?
Several things come from that. Is there a structured role of provincial and federal representatives in that risk assessment process?
Mr. Ash: The City of Ottawa has conducted a risk assessment. With respect to this group that we are talking about that shall remain unnamed, I guess, we have not conducted a global or holistic risk assessment. Certainly, the City of Ottawa is in a position to conduct a risk assessment within the next 12 months, at which time we would like to engage our broader partners. My risk should be everyone else's risk.
Senator Mitchell: That raises the question of standards or parameters of risk assessments. Is there some formal provincial or federal standard? If not, is it necessary? If it is, which level, federal or provincial?
Mr. Ash: Provincially, in Ontario, the risk assessment — which they call HIRA, Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment — looks at probability and consequence. The City of Ottawa has actually built upon that. We look at probability and consequence and we factor in our response capacity, because it may be a high risk but if you have a well-developed response capacity it should be lower on the priority list.
Senator Mitchell: You would argue that it is working now, and that the provincial coordination or provincial standards are upgraded or modified to meet particular city needs and are functioning and that there is not a need for a federal role in establishing those risk assessment standards?
Mr. Ash: It speaks to a broader question as to whether it is a Joint Emergency Preparedness Program — JEPP — grant application setting up that framework. What is it based upon? Is it based upon a well-understood equally applied risk assessment? Yes, there would be value there, but geographically the risk assessment we put in place exceeds the provincial standard and meets our needs.
Senator Mitchell: Is there no general federal role? Are you saying there might be some advantage to a federal role in that regard?
Mr. Ash: Yes.
Senator Mitchell: You mentioned in passing the involvement of the military police. Clearly, Ottawa and some other centres in the country have a particular resource in the military. They are close by, they have a good deal of real estate and they attract attention to some extent as well.
Also, you have a special responsibility in Ottawa to the extent that you have targets. You have cherished buildings that are very vulnerable in many respects, to fire, for example.
Is there a broader role and a broader coordination with the military in Ottawa and the region with just the military police?
Mr. Ash: From the city's perspective, outside of some discussions regarding Canada Command and the area commander in regard to relationship building, we have not had any formal discussions with regard to specific assistance in the response capacity capability and so on. It is more or less us understanding the individuals and the specific relationships in that context.
Senator Mitchell: Is that because you do not need the help or because there has not been the effort undertaken to coordinate it and involve them?
Mr. Ash: Certainly, from my standpoint, our discussions are very much around their understanding that in the initial 72 hours they would not be able to assist in any form of additional response capacity or capability.
Senator Mitchell: Is that your understanding only?
Mr. Ash: It is, from communications directly with them, yes.
Senator Mitchell: You said that that is their understanding.
Mr. Ash: They communicated that to me. That would be my understanding.
Senator Mitchell: Are you okay with that?
Mr. Ash: Yes.
The Chair: What difference do you see now in terms of your relations with the military than before Canada Command set up?
Mr. Ash: I was made aware of Canada Command. They introduced themselves to my office and began dialogues. Prior to that, there were no formal discussions. I do not know about my counterparts.
Ms. O'Sullivan: I can tell you that the military has been helpful from a police perspective for many years. Back in 1998, when we started what used to be NBC — now it is CBRN — the military was extremely helpful to us in Ottawa Fire Services to stand up and get some knowledge at a time when there was not a lot. We have a relationship with the military police because they police areas in our city as well, from a National Defence Headquarters point of view, from a security or target area.
Canada Command, the other entity we spoke about, is on board with us on that other entity and are working hard with us on how they can assist us.
We had a huge demonstration in 2004 with the reservists to stage some training. We did a mock scenario at Ottawa City Hall where there had been some biological contamination.
Keeping in mind many reservists are firefighters and police we would pull in on a regular emergency. From our perspective, they were extremely helpful to help us stand up and give us knowledge around the CBRN team as well.
The Chair: That was not the question. The question was: What difference do you see now that Canada Command is in existence from what you had prior to that?
Ms. O'Sullivan: There is improved communication and willingness to participate.
Senator Mitchell: What is the status of your public awareness campaign? Do you have a specific period of time that you communicate to people that they should be self-sufficient in the event of an emergency?
Mr. Ash: We have a robust public education awareness program. It is called the Are You Ready? campaign.
It focuses on two delivery methods. One is passive, where you go to the website and get pamphlets and so on. Our more preferred method is that we engage community and business leaders and train them as trainers. We provide them all the support material. There is a PowerPoint presentation with speaking notes built into it so that we get consistent knowledge transfer. The rationale behind it is that I, as John Ash, telling you to do something has little relevance. However, if your peer tells you why a specific item is important, there is greater uptake.
We have approximately 64 community and business trainers, ranging from the Bank of Canada to hospitals to local community groups and so on, who are actively providing this training. They have given about 32,000 individual Are You Ready? training sessions.
It is a difficult topic because many people do not think about it until it is has happened and then they think they had better do something but forget about it again.
In December 2005, we had a mini ice storm. We were surprised with some of the areas that had power outages. A number of them had backup generators, whether for their sump pump or their whole house. They had battery-powered flashlights and radios and so on. People are beginning to take the uptake, but it is a program that we will continually have to reinforce, and I think our community engagement strategy is probably the best one.
Senator Mitchell: We were talking about this earlier. This is less a throwaway than it may seem, but are there some businesses that might be interested in promoting some of these ideas because they sell the products that people need? I am thinking of generators.
Mr. Ash: We have not gone down that path. We have engaged businesses in the sense of getting them and their employees educated and trained about business continuity and personal preparedness, but not with regard to promoting that.
Senator Mitchell: Do you have an emergency broadcast system proposal or something in place where you can intervene in radio and television broadcasts directly?
Mr. Ash: Currently, we do not. However, within the 2008 window, one of our projects is to implement a mass communication network. We had been looking at telephone broadcast systems, but we are awaiting the CRTC ruling allowing the use of Reverse 911 data, which has now been settled, and we are proceeding with that.
Senator Mitchell: That would be your preferred mechanism?
Mr. Ash: One of them, yes.
The Chair: Could you characterize that for us in greater detail? The community is familiar with Reverse 911. We presume that would allow you to go to individual communities. Is that correct? You would be able to go to subsets of the city?
Mr. Ash: Yes. Basically, with Reverse 911 data, from a mapping or geomatics standpoint, you would be able to identify by drawing a line around the area you wanted to communicate with and then you would be able to push a phone message out to those particular residences or businesses and get confirmation that they received that message.
The Chair: What plans do you have using electronic media — radio and television — and interrupting their broadcasts?
Mr. Ash: We do not have any capability to interrupt television broadcasts and so forth. We work with our partners in policing and what have you. Our corporate communications departments have positive relationships with the media.
The Chair: But that is a press conference as opposed to a direct communication.
Mr. Ash: For example, locally, CFRA will interrupt their broadcast to provide that message for us. We also have an agreement with 97.9, I believe it is, a small radio station called Information Radio, that we can interrupt their radio broadcast at any time to provide messages.
The Chair: But you do not have a full spectrum?
Mr. Ash: No, not at this time, but that is part of our strategy for this coming year.
The Chair: You contemplate having that?
Mr. Ash: Yes. We have identified funding for the 2008 window to implement mass and localized communication in the event of emergencies or disasters.
The Chair: By 2010, would you expect to have the capacity to interrupt any television or radio broadcast that goes to citizens of Ottawa?
Mr. Ash: I do not know whether it would be radio or television broadcasts, but we are looking at what are the best tools to maximize communication with residents, either en masse or in a focused context.
The Chair: If I hear you correctly, you are still studying it and do not yet have a specific plan.
Mr. Ash: That is correct. We are developing our requirements and we will look at that.
Senator Zimmer: Thank you for your presentation and for appearing before us today. Deputy Chief, I want to ask you some questions because I think you are just bursting with the answers. I will try to be brief.
Senator Nolin touched on this in your response to him. Could you describe the actual role that the police play with regard to emergency management in relation to your partners? To what degree is the Ottawa Police Service involved in critical infrastructure protection?
Ms. O'Sullivan: If the emergency is of a criminal nature, we would provide a coordinated response with our other policing partners. If it is an emergency such as an ice storm, we are in a supportive role to our city partners.
I will use the ice storm as an example. Normally, in a police emergency, we would look at protection of life and property and evacuation. If crimes occurred as a result of the emergency, we would obviously be investigating traffic movement and that kind of thing, basic safety and security. In an emergency-measure situation, we would be in a supportive role.
In terms of critical infrastructure protection, we work closely with our partners, with the City of Ottawa. As Mr. Ash mentioned, we did an assessment of our critical buildings in the city, so we would assist with that. Five years ago, in our city, each of us made the commitment to provide a full-time staff person to the team. So it is not just that we have meetings every once in a while. I have a sergeant assigned full time to work with Mr. Ash. He is pinch-hitting for Mr. Ash for the next month or two as the head of emergency measures, the same as our other partners. We bring that alive and are very much involved in assisting and working as a team in identifying those critical infrastructures.
Senator Zimmer: Capital cities are unique because everyone is attracted there. Foreign Affairs dignitaries come in and there are celebrations and so on, which puts tremendous pressure on a city like this. What is the financial impact on the Ottawa Police Service and to what degree is funding provided by the federal government? Is it sufficient to meet your needs?
Ms. O'Sullivan: The short answer is no. Chief White has recently spoken publicly about this and has met with the minister in dealing with those unique financial circumstances. You asked the question of the police service, but I will answer as part of a team.
We have planned events such as presidential visits. As you identified, we have 600 to 800 events that occur in this city and about 150 demonstrations as a result of political events. We have something as simple as a level 5, which is if a president visits, and the traffic escort and security concerns that go with that. We work closely with all our policing partners. There are costs that come with those high-threat environments. For example, there is the paramedic team that came out of the OC Transpo tragedy. If it is a potential biothreat, Mr. DiMonte's skills and the equipment he carries need to be deployed, same as with the Haz-Mat team.
Although it is a policing answer, it is a City of Ottawa and a National Capital Region answer in that we may also stand up assets on the Quebec side just in case, so there are costs to them as well. To answer your question, there are significant costs, being the nation's capital, that are not included in a municipal budget. There have been public examples of those costs.
For example, previous presidential visits cost the City of Ottawa some $3.5 million. These are costs that are not in our budgets. It would be very difficult for a municipality to try to carry that cost. On these planned events, the federal government has met our needs, and we do submit as a team in terms of those municipal costs.
The Chair: Chief White, when I last spoke to him, was talking about snagging about 175 people out of the federal promise of new police.
Ms. O'Sullivan: I think he said 250.
The Chair: He is a very ambitious man, I know.
Ms. O'Sullivan: I think he said 10 per cent of the police budget, or 250.
The Chair: If it is 250, would that solve the problem?
Ms. O'Sullivan: I asked him that specific question prior to coming here. The federal government has come out publicly and talked about 2,500 officers. He indicated that he would be looking in the range of 250, but that would not include some of the other substantive costs that come with that. For example, there are logistical costs. When we host a major event such as a presidential visit, we bring in policing partners from other areas, be it the Ontario Provincial Police or Toronto Police. There are costs associated with housing and logistics that would not be included in that.
The Chair: You do not bill back the federal government?
Ms. O'Sullivan: On average, we have been successful in getting about 80 per cent back.
We have had a great opportunity to learn in terms of these funding frameworks. One of the things is to identify what the federal government will or will not pay for. There is a set of rules of engagement that have been helpful to us in the planning stages. Traditionally, when you hear publicly the police response was this or that, we rely on our threat assessments that we do with all three levels of government. Obviously, different levels of government have primacy depending on the threat. For example, cyber terrorism lies with the federal government.
We look at previous lessons learned as well as go forward and depend on that. It is not unique to Ottawa, but that is a question a lot of cities would face. Agreed-upon formulas would be helpful if they could be established.
Senator Meighen: Is this funding that we have been talking about outside the Joint Emergency Preparedness Program?
Ms. O'Sullivan: Absolutely.
Senator Zimmer: As an auxiliary to that, are there many surprises that occur that you cannot budget for?
Ms. O'Sullivan: Absolutely.
Senator Zimmer: Then you have to go back to the federal government and make your best case saying there is no way we could provide for this. How successful it that?
Ms. O'Sullivan: We have been successful. I will also ask my partners to give their responses.
It has been a battle. If we had to carry that $3.5 million within the existing police budget, we would be looking at layoffs. We do not have that money. When the government decides to host something, we are there to be engaged and provide services, but these costs are not included.
Senator Zimmer: When the government is planning the event and the costs for security, do they talk to you before or surprise you after?
Ms. O'Sullivan: There is dialogue because we have experience. We know what they will or will not pay for now. We undergo a full audit after every one of these events. However, when an announcement is made that a president is visiting in 10 days, there is it not a lot of time to engage. Our engagement is getting people operationalized.
These are huge initiatives to launch in those short periods of time. You are mobilizing operationally and assessing threat constantly and trying to be as prudent as possible in the use of our assets and resources.
The other impact that Mr. Ash addressed in his opening comments is that even if I have four months notice, I am taking people away from their regular duties for three months of planning. This is also the case with my partners in fire, paramedic and city services. This has an impact at the local level because these people are being taken from regular duties to meet the other need.
Mr. DiMonte: It is important to understand that municipal capacity is designed and focused on our normal response to our prime mandate. When these supplementary mandates occur, it strains our resources. That is the discussion that needs to occur. What level of resourcing is needed to be able to respond to that?
With the paramedic service, whenever we have a foreign visitor coming, I have paramedics assigned. That is fine; I am reimbursed by Health Canada. However, it is the upfront costs of training those paramedics to ensure they understand the diplomacy involved that another city would not have. I do not have that internal capacity. Ms. O'Sullivan referred to the fact that upfront preparedness and getting mobilized is huge. To be blunt, after a presidential visit, the team is burnt out for a couple of weeks.
It is the relationship of this municipality being the seat of our national government that distinguishes that role that we must get our heads around. It is not only the cost of unit hours on the road that we need to be paid for but the other things such as the capacity to respond to those things that are not usual.
Senator Zimmer: Is overtime another issue?
Ms. O'Sullivan: Mr. DiMonte alluded to this as well. When there is one of these events, they often bring together these teams days in advance. We can only ask a member to do so many days straight — and they are often lengthy shifts, particularly for a specialty squad. If I have to deploy them for five days in a row, I can pull them at any time, and we do have back up through the RCMP, but that is a lot of hours and fray on these specialty teams that sometimes take years to train.
Senator Zimmer: The real question is how ready are you?
I will give you a quick example. About 10 years ago, I was in Cheyenne Mountain in the United States. The generals were there. That was about six months before 9/11. The last question we asked to the generals was how ready are you? Do you know where everything is and where all the bodies are buried? They said they have no surprises. We then had 9/11. I saw him in Winnipeg six months later and asked him the same question and got a different answer.
Are you prepared and do you know where everything is? What training do you provide?
Ms. O'Sullivan: Maybe all of us could answer that question.
I think we have come a long way. We still have gaps. We know where they are and we continue to work on them. The other question is not only are we ready but how long can we sustain it? That is a bigger question.
We are proud of our CBRNE capacity. It has its own lifetime and it is not lengthy because of the environment in which you work. We still have a tremendous amount of work to do in the different areas identified. Mr. Ash talked about looking at the federal government not only in terms of your strategic approach and mandate but also as a client for the City of Ottawa for some of those very basic needs that the federal government will have.
To touch on the training question, the police force has training days, and I have capacity to do some of that. It is expensive, and to train 1,300 sworn members, we have to pick and choose how to do that or it could take five years to train, depending on the subject.
How are we to train doctors? They have to come in for training on their own time. When you look at other agencies that do not have those built-in training times, how do we engage them?
Mr. Ash: I think Ms. O'Sullivan has summarized this very well. We have done a significant amount of work and we are proud of how far we have come. However, we realize the complexity of the environment in which we work. We know that our capacity is here. However, if a Katrina-type event came to us, would we sail through it? We would have our challenges. We would be dependent upon our partners within and outside the National Capital Region to help us.
Senator Zimmer: When you do your training and testing, do you do actual dry runs where you time responses rather than just do it sitting around the table?
Mr. Ash: For our emergency operation control group, for example, in the past 2.5 years, we have run about 11 tabletop exercises. That is all the department heads and others involved. They are complex in nature and take about a half a day to run through the exercise.
With regard to field-deployment exercises, they take significantly more resources. We have run a couple of those at the airport, Algonquin College and the Central Experimental Farm. The frequency of those is not as much as the tabletop, but we have run them.
Ms. O'Sullivan: Where we would like to see more exercises is in the tri-government approach. We always have our provincial rep, but we would like to engage more at the provincial and federal levels and engage all three levels together. That is where the communication issue lies and that is where it really comes together. We had that opportunity last Friday.
Some full-scale exercises can take a year in planning because of the safety issues that go with them. We are mandated to have one at the airport every three years over a 24-hour period. These are long in the making. The tabletop exercises give you the chance to have the tough dialogue with your partners.
We were pleasantly surprised by our provincial response to what we thought might be an issue in this tabletop last Friday. We need more of those, where we have the tri-government participation. That is where the rubber will hit the road when it comes to a major emergency.
The Chair: How much have you budgeted for field exercises?
Mr. Ash: The City of Ottawa has implemented an exercise training program and within that there is $300,000 for curriculum development and exercises. The human resources cost to send staff to those training exercises would be absorbed by the respective agencies, which cost can be significant.
The Chair: We are fans of field exercises. We think that if you do not try to attach the hose to the hydrant, you may have a problem.
Senator Nancy Ruth: Speaking of hydrants, I have one outside my house. Are hydrant fittings and hose fittings standard across Canada?
Rick Larabie, Fire Chief, Ottawa Fire Services, City of Ottawa: I would say no. I believe they vary from province to province. For example, the thread size in Quebec is different than in Ontario, so we have to carry adapters when we respond on the Quebec side.
Senator Nancy Ruth: That would be true for Gatineau coming to Ottawa?
Mr. Larabie: That is correct.
Senator Nancy Ruth: Is there any move to standardize fittings this across the country or with border towns in the United States?
Mr. Larabie: I do not think there is any move afoot to do that. It is done on an as-required basis. In Windsor and across the border in Detroit, where they respond back and forth as required, they would have looked after that. We have already done that in the area surrounding Ottawa-Gatineau. The vehicles that would respond to Gatineau are equipped with the special adapters, so it is not an issue for us.
Senator Nancy Ruth: I wanted to continue on the topic of being able to sustain all this activity for longer than 72 hours.
How would the reservists be used in sustainability, or what else would you do? I do not know much about the reservists. Who are they? Are they ex-fire people?
Mr. Larabie: First, the example of the reservists was to do with the military. We have volunteers. The City of Ottawa has a unique situation among municipalities of this size. We have about 950 uniformed career firefighters and about 425 volunteer firefighters that operate in the rural areas surrounding Ottawa. Therefore, we have a complement of about 1,400 individuals.
Senator Nancy Ruth: Would that be enough to sustain your efforts beyond 72 hours, given burnout, et cetera?
Mr. Larabie: That depends on the training. We have no more ability than anyone else to sustain a certain number of firefighters trained to a very high level to do the CBRNE stuff. We are probably better prepared than any municipality in the country, but at the end of the day sustainability will be an issue for anyone.
Senator Nancy Ruth: Can you tell me about the CBRNE stuff? How is it funded and what do you do? What can I, as a person who lives in Ottawa, expect if we get dumped on with radiological junk?
Ms. O'Sullivan: We talked about sustainability. We do not want to leave you with the impression that we can sustain for 72 hours, because we cannot. Depending on the nature of the threat, the type of material that is used will determine whether and how much we can respond.
We are very aware of the national CBRNE team. We have co-trained with that team. Many of our people, including paramedics and firefighters, have gone to DRES — Defence Research Establishment Suffield — in Alberta to take the live-agent training.
Some of my members are trained in level A for when there is an actual release. It involves a one- or a one-and-a-half- hour pack on the back, and so you can imagine working in that environment with that speciality. We do deploy together, depending on the nature of the threat. If it is criminal in nature, police would deploy with paramedics and firefighters. We do not want to leave the impression that there is huge sustainability around that. There is ability to respond, but the level of the response is limited.
I will give an example of where the federal government could be helpful, and I know that some of my teammates have the same issue. Some of the equipment we use, such as that which is worn by our members when going into an environment where there is radiation, requires federal licences. We have to go to various agencies for common equipment used to deploy in that scenario.
My members have highlighted that for us. There are significant issues around the use of some of this equipment, and rightfully so. Some of it contains small radiological sources that are governed by safety regulations.
Mr. Larabie: On JEPP funding, the issue we all face is that we have acquired a lot of equipment from that funding as well as from some municipal funding, but we have no capacity whatsoever to replace it from a municipal standpoint, and we are all concerned about that.
Ms. O'Sullivan: We all purchased gas masks together. They are coming to the end of their shelf life and we have no money in our budgets to replace them. That is our capacity. We were lucky to get some initial funding. The canisters that go on the masks have a certain shelf life, but if you open them, the shelf life is significantly reduced. The same is true for gas masks. The initial purchase involved $400,000 or $500,000.
Senator Meighen: In 2007, your principal complaint was the slowness of the process in getting approval, or at least an answer. Is that still the case?
Mr. Ash: The Province of Ontario has taken some steps with a web-based application process through which it is possible to track your application. They have made some commitments on turn-around time. The reason for the complaint is that we still have money outstanding from 2002. They are slowly getting caught up, but it is an issue. I feel far more confident than I did even six to eight months ago that the process is getting better. Certainly, rapid turn- around time is beneficial to the municipalities in order that we are not holding the purse.
Ms. O'Sullivan: JEPP was never designed to do what we needed to do, and that is the problem. When 9/11 happened, JEPP was used to fill a gap. It was never intended to do what we need.
I suggest that the federal government revisit that funding formula to appropriately meet the needs of municipalities in terms of facing the complex challenges to which we now must respond.
The Chair: From your perspective, what should that be?
Ms. O'Sullivan: I had the privilege to sit on the committee that examined equipment. If I had $10 million to buy equipment tomorrow but I did not have a plan, trained people, or the ability to train people to use that equipment, or if I bought inappropriate equipment, then all I would have is $10 million worth of equipment.
These agreed-upon funding formulas have to meet the needs of communities. We might start one place and attempt to go somewhere else, but we need a framework that addresses equipment and training based on the community's need, personal protection equipment and strategies to deal with the public.
You asked about critical infrastructure. A large portion of our critical infrastructure is held by private industry. We are all looking at enhancing and leveraging our partnerships with private industry. There are companies in Ottawa that deal with radiological matter. It would be opportune to enter into partnerships with them in order for them to assist in a crisis.
The JEPP grant funding was never designed to meet our needs, and it was used pragmatically post-9/11 to get things done.
Senator Nancy Ruth: What are your main concerns about CBRNE capabilities, Mr. Larabie, apart from what has just been said?
Mr. Larabie: I would say that it is an expensive venture to get into. The training aspect is costly and must be ongoing.
We are all concerned about how to sustain the training in the future and how to replace the equipment that has a short life expectancy. Those are the kinds of issues that we discuss. We have the ability to respond but, as Deputy Chief O'Sullivan pointed out, we do not have the ability to sustain an operation for an indefinite period of time.
Ms. O'Sullivan: We had a discussion post-9/11 on how to access pharmaceuticals should there be a release. We made the decision to not rely on the federal government making stock available. Some of the necessary responses must be immediate but it will be too late if they are deployed either in a different city or in part of the city. A decision was made to float $50,000 worth of pharmaceuticals at the city level so that we would have some treatment capability.
Mr. DiMonte: Following up on that from the medical perspective, we developed such a stockpile, but it will expire shortly and the training for paramedics to maintain their readiness status is extremely difficult and costly. However, as Ms. O'Sullivan said, we have no choice. We had to ensure that we had that capability. As you can read in the description, Ms. O'Sullivan, Mr. Larabie and I all have the specialized teams with the equipment required with short half-lives — so the question remains: How do we maintain and grow that capacity — because 72 hours is a finite period of time that we have the capacity to respond, and it depends on the type of release? If there are 200 patients, it is one thing; if it is 50 patients, it is another thing. Both scenarios are dreadful and I hope it never happens. Now that we have it up and running, we need to determine how to maintain it. We must open that dialogue with the federal government. Yes, there is municipal responsibility, but it goes beyond that because of some of the targets here, being the nation's capital. We need that capacity.
Senator Nancy Ruth: If you were to get your masks and containers replaced, what would happen to the old stuff?
Ms. O'Sullivan: Selling equipment that has been deployed is always an issue — because of risk management. I will speak for my organization. If something can be reused, we will reuse it, but it carries a risk. If we are getting rid of it, it is for a reason, possibly because it no longer has a shelf life or because we cannot rely on the equipment in the field. You hate to give another organization something unreliable. We rely on scientists and government agencies to give us guidance on that. For example, are we allowed legally to still use the HI-6 auto-injector, which was developed in Canada and used worldwide? Some equipment is deployed and used in other countries but sometimes not in Canada. Can we use that? The federal government could be helpful in giving us some top research advice, such as CBRN Research and Technology Initiative, CRTI, in terms of helping us to make those decisions. If we make an investment in gas masks, we can only do it once because that is all the money we have for it.
Senator Nancy Ruth: Is Canada or the City of Ottawa or any other city in Canada in the business of dumping stuff you do not want in some other country for a price?
Ms. O'Sullivan: Not that I am aware of.
The Chair: Mr. Larabie, before we leave the subject of sustainability, we have been discussing the matter in terms of hours. Can you discuss it in terms of the numbers of people for CBRNE? Can you cope with 75 or 150 patients? Would you measure it in that way rather than in hours?
Mr. Larabie: Are you asking in terms of how many individuals we have trained?
The Chair: How many people could you process?
Ms. O'Sullivan: Do you mean if the emergency were chemical or biological in nature?
Mr. Larabie: I am not sure about that one. I am not sure about the number of people per hour. Do you want to know the number of fire fighters and the number of victims?
The Chair: We want a general understanding. You gave the committee the impression in your answer that you could not sustain your CBRNE response effort for 72 hours and that it would be a number of hours less than that. My question is this: In terms of the number of people being decontaminated, how many could you manage before you exhausted your resources?
Mr. Larabie: I am not sure it could be measured in that way because the individuals that we have trained would be looking at doing other things and not necessarily decontamination only. If we had to focus entirely on decontamination, I suppose it could be sustained for 72 hours.
The makeup of the team is such that it has only so much capacity to do all things — test people, remove people from the hot zone, process people, et cetera. Many small elements are involved, so it is not necessarily a case of using all of the resources for only one element.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Tkachuk: I want to spend time on process, so anyone may feel free to answer my question.
At what point do all of the resources become flexible? What kind of disaster has to occur to call forth the police forces of Gatineau and Ottawa? What has to happen to cause that to take effect?
Mr. Larabie: That would be initiated through the City of Ottawa emergency measures unit.
Ms. O'Sullivan: Certainly, that would happen if there were a declaration of emergency. Reciprocal agreements between the fire departments of Gatineau and Ottawa are in place. If it is a large-scale disaster that requires additional resources, the normal protocol followed would be a declaration of emergency and escalation to the province with a request for resources or to our respective neighbouring geographic area to request resources. It depends on the event, but if the event is large-scale, the typical escalation would be declaration and request for additional resources.
Senator Tkachuk: If two big buildings blow up on each side of the river and people are killed, who makes the declaration of emergency?
Mr. Ash: It is a matter of geography. The City of Ottawa Emergency Operations Centre, EOC, would assess its current capacity and capability to manage a particular incident within its geographic space. If we were to exceed our capacity, then we would make that declaration. It would be independent of Gatineau. Certainly, if Gatineau made a request to us that began to squeeze our capacity, then, obviously, that dialogue would have to occur. This goes to the question of provincial jurisdiction, and Gatineau would have to escalate to their provincial body for additional resources.
Senator Tkachuk: Let us say an emergency occurs on each side of the river that entails fire, paramedics and the police. Who would be in charge?
Ms. O'Sullivan: We need to clarify whether a criminal act has occurred.
Senator Tkachuk: We know only that two buildings have exploded and are burning, and people are dying. This is an emergency. Who is in charge?
Mr. Larabie: I should like to clarify one thing.
Senator Tkachuk: There has been a declaration of emergency. I do not know whether it has been declared in Ottawa or in Gatineau or both.
Mr. Larabie: In the event that an explosion occurs on the Gatineau side that involves a building or two, we would respond immediately upon request from the Gatineau fire department. That happens several times each year.
We also respond in terms of automatic or mutual aid arrangements with them when requested for water rescues and hazardous materials calls. If it is not a huge event, we can do that as a matter of protocol.
I wanted to make that point, in the event you were left with the impression that nothing happens.
Senator Tkachuk: Let us go to my hypothetical example of an emergency. There are two explosions — and you do not know whether there has been a terrorist act. People are dying. Natural gas is leaking, and buildings are burning. In other words, a real emergency is unfolding. Who is in charge?
Ms. O'Sullivan: All of our front-line responders would be responding, as they would to emergency and preservation- of-life issues. At the same time, the unified command structures would be mobilizing. There is the incident command system — ICS — in which we are all trained. I know the Province of Ontario has gone to the incident command system.
In the scenario you are describing, our front-line responders would do what they do best; in the meantime, we would mobilize our command structures. Whether or not the City of Ottawa declared an emergency, we would be standing up EOCs. There is one in the City of Ottawa. In this scenario, in terms of the policing community, we would mobilize that framework, which would put all the police agencies together to discuss what immediate information we had, to assess whether we had any early information that would cause us to believe we are dealing with a potential terrorist act. As well, we would mobilize our unified investigative teams, to begin to look at the information in that area. Parallel processes would be in play.
From a police perspective, we have unified command structures in which, in the event of a terrorist act, a national counterterrorism plan clearly identifies our roles and responsibilities. There is a provision that will allow us to mobilize with the province.
Having said that, we would also ensure that we had these joint teams together, because Ottawa Fire Services, say, may come up with a piece of information from the scene that will drive an investigation one way. Therefore, we would have those parallel processes. The City of Ottawa or the City of Gatineau will declare an emergency if they feel it is beyond their capacity.
Senator Tkachuk: Is there someone in charge?
Mr. Ash: At the site, there could be a unified standpoint — or you might have a single incident commander, if the situation escalates. That is standard operating procedure. As it escalates, and you mobilize your EOC, at that time, the EOC is there to support the needs of the site. The site is still managing the site. It is the EOC that is managing the remaining geography and supporting the site. I do not know if that clarifies your question or not.
Senator Tkachuk: I still do not know who is in charge. Is one person in charge — such as the mayor, for example? Is there a council? Who deploys the various people? How do you know what to deploy in an emergency?
Mr. Ash: The City of Ottawa emergency plan is very clear, in that the head of our Emergency Operations Centre is the city manager. He chairs that group. His or her role is not to move chess pieces on the site. That is the role of the incident commander for that site.
Senator Tkachuk: Who directs the relationship with the security people in the Parliament buildings — in the Senate and in the House of Commons? We are not sure if they even talk to each other; I do not know if they talk to anybody else. Are they part of your planning?
Ms. O'Sullivan: They are. The RCMP is the federal police agency and as such is the full-time liaison with the Senate security as well as with the House of Commons security.
At a local police service jurisdiction, we work with the RCMP on a regular basis. We meet at various meetings, be it a meeting hosted by CSIS or something other meeting. We keep the lines of communication open. Should there be an incident — and we have done training scenarios in the event that we have to evacuate Parliament Hill. We understand how that would go. If there were a fire threat on Parliament Hill, whether criminal or not, it will be Ottawa Fire Services working with Senate and/or House of Commons security and the RCMP.
To answer the question of who is in charge, it depends on the nature of the incident. Early on, when we do not know what we are dealing with, there will be a unified command structure. We all have senior incident commanders who train together on a regular basis. Therefore, there would be an Ottawa incident commander working with an RCMP incident commander. Ottawa Police would also have people in the City of Ottawa EOC, as well as over at the divisional emergency operations centre with the RCMP, which is connected to the national operation centre, a 24/7 entity.
When a scenario of the kind you described happens, we need to ensure that we have the best information possible upon which to make decisions about how to deploy assets. If two buildings fall down on both sides of the river, I want to know what will come next. We need that intelligence piece as well.
Senator Tkachuk: The unexpected occurred on September 11, 2001. The generals were probably prepared, but perhaps they were prepared for planes coming from elsewhere, not domestic planes full of people aimed at their buildings. That was quite a surprise.
How much time do you spend discussing the unexpected? How often do you meet? Do you think about that? If something like 9/11 happened again, it would not be what we expect but something we would not expect. I do not know how terrorists think, though somebody must.
Ms. O'Sullivan: Although we work a lot at the local level, we are also plugged in at the national and international levels and are looking to our partners who have experience in various areas. For example, we work with the U.K. and examine their lessons learned. As recently as today, we were talking about an initiative in the U.K. that deals with how they train people who run shopping malls, pubs and bars. Much of that is built out of Operation Rainbow in the U.K.
To mobilize and prepare for the unexpected we build off basic emergency measures. We are uncertain as to where something may come from, but we are looking to our intelligence community and to our partners nationally and internationally to constantly communicate with and learn from. There are formal networks that exist at the international level — and the RCMP is a large player in that. It includes a number of municipal police agencies, as well, in terms of what threats are out there. We rely on our intelligence agency, CSIS, to give us guidance in terms of threats.
This framework that we talk about is intended to do a little of what you are describing, which is to determine how we, in high-threat environments when we have highly sensitive information, give some heads-up to our partners in a way that allows us to have a common threat-level understanding. If I were to say that a threat level is at medium, my partners would know what that means. We have aligned that at the municipal, provincial and the federal levels, to establish a common understanding. We rely on the federal government to give us the threat level on cyber-security and terrorism.
Something called war-gaming is used to look at the unexpected. I know through the city emergency measures planning via formal tabletop scenarios that Mr. Ash and the team have challenged us with multiple simultaneous incidents. On a regular basis, we look at opportunities to train, work out how we will respond, look at continuing to develop that and think of what else could come at us.
Senator Tkachuk: I have one more question. It is primarily directed to Mr. Ash.
We were talking about the costs of a president or a head of state coming in and that there are costs to the City of Ottawa in providing services. I have some sympathy for that. However, I am wondering whether the City of Ottawa factors in the revenue and benefits it gets because the federal government is located in the city?
When I stay in a hotel, I pay a 5 per cent marketing fee on every stay here. There are 400 members of Parliament who pop in here and stay at hotels. Then there are all the lobbyists, agricultural people — all these people flying into Ottawa. There must be a tremendous amount of revenue — outside of all the employees that are paying property taxes on nice big houses because they make a lot of money — in the City of Ottawa.
Does any of that factor into the fact that there is a certain benefit to being a capital? A lot of cities in Canada would exchange hosting a president once in a while if they got to be the capital. They would probably love that; there would be no problem with doing that at all.
Mr. Ash: We do not do an apples-to-apples comparison. That is difficult to do. Why are people brought in — is it for a specific reason? When an individual checks in at a hotel, it is not as though anyone asks why he or she is here, so it is difficult to know that.
However, there is a clear understanding that there is a benefit to the municipality from a tax on tourism. What we are saying is that we need to sit down and look at the level of service expectation the federal government requires with regard to these special events, or even just regular events. One of the analogies that I like to use — excuse me if I go on a bit here —
Senator Tkachuk: Please do. I am done.
Mr. Ash: What would happen if there were a dirty bomb-type of incident that involved the Hill? Is there an expectation that members of Parliament — the Senate and what have you — will receive preferential treatment with regard to decontamination?
Senator Nancy Ruth: Are you asking us?
Senator Tkachuk: I have no idea.
Mr. Ash: I have no idea myself, but I have asked some people within the federal government and there is an assumption that there would be. If there are hundreds of people that require decontamination, is there an expectation of service?
We say, let us sit down and talk about what that expectation. Let us throw the cards on the table to say, ``This is what it costs us to provide this level of service.'' Perhaps there is a formula or some way we can equate added benefit to the city. We want to have that dialogue. We want to be frank and candid, throw the cards on the table and say this is where we are at, so we can close the gaps if necessary.
Senator Tkachuk: Are you pushing for that dialogue now?
Mr. Ash: Yes.
Senator Tkachuk: Are they being helpful or are they stalling you? What is happening? Maybe we can help you.
Mr. Ash: It was challenging for me, because I spent probably two years trying to find the right person to talk to.
Senator Nancy Ruth: We have the same problem.
Mr. Ash: I say that with some understanding of the complexity because there is each individual department. My issues are about the government and not individual departments. Whether it is a municipal pipe that comes into the various buildings, I need to know about the dependency on the water, because we are responsible for that. If we do not have that dialogue holistically, as the federal government to the City of Ottawa, it will be difficult for us to prioritize critical infrastructure and all those kinds of things.
Coming back to your question, we understand clearly that there is a benefit. However, we want to ensure that we are both talking about apples and apples and that there is a clear expectation of what service will be provided and the cost for that service.
The Chair: For the record, I want to clarify that Senator Tkachuk is from Saskatchewan and I am a taxpayer in Ottawa.
Mr. Ash: Senator Tkachuk, I am originally from Saskatchewan too, but I am a taxpayer in Ottawa now.
Senator Tkachuk: I would love to have the capital in Saskatoon. You can bring in a president every year.
The Chair: What support does the City of Ottawa provide to smaller communities outside of the boundaries? Do you have obligations to provide support or do you do it on a voluntary basis?
Mr. DiMonte: In each area, the jurisdiction is different. For the paramedic service, in Ontario we have an assumption of seamless ambulance service. It is a provincial act. If our colleagues in Prescott-Russell require assistance, I send the closest vehicles. It is the same situation as Mr. Larabie.
In Ottawa, we have CBRNE capacity; we have tactical medic capacity. We have those speciality teams that my colleagues do not have. If they have that type of event, we will respond and support them. It is obliged and mandatory.
It is the same with our colleagues in Quebec. We have arrangements with them and we cross over the bridge whenever they need our assistance. We would provide the specialties there as well. That is mandatory and it is required as part of our responsibilities as the nation's capital and the largest city in the area. I think it is different in each of the services.
Ms. O'Sullivan: From the police perspective, we have specialist squads that are gone if required in an emergency, be it explosives or any of those assets we can help out with. One of the issues we face is cross-border issues.
The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police has been trying for many years. There is an agreement on a national framework and we are trying to have the ability that, in an emergency, we can mobilize our officers in full capacity in the other provinces. We do it right now by signing memorandums of understanding and we have had the support of the Quebec and Ontario governments. However, that is something we are looking for on a national level — that police officers can go in in emergencies with the full protections that come with that.
I am not naive; there are huge administrative and indemnification issues that come with that. Four provinces have now done it, and it is something we are working towards. However, right now that is one of the issues — that is, that to deploy a police officer in another province, unless they have special constables or supernumerary status, would be a problem.
The Chair: I have a question regarding Health Canada's national emergency stockpile system. Are you aware of the system?
Mr. DiMonte: Yes, I am.
The Chair: Are you aware of where the stockpiles are in the Ottawa region?
Mr. DiMonte: Specifically, I do not know, but I know my staff does.
The Chair: Are you aware of what is in each cache?
Mr. DiMonte: Yes; we have that listing. Actually, we have been working with Health Canada on a couple of other issues and we are revamping that. The national health emergency response teams were involved with that, too.
The Chair: Have you been consulted on what should be in the caches in future?
Mr. DiMonte: I think «consulted» is perhaps a big word. There is a recognition right now concerning what we use in pre-hospital medicine today and what are in the caches may have been there for many years, some dating back to the Korean War.
The Chair: Some of it dates back to about 1945.
Mr. DiMonte: Absolutely. That being said, some of that equipment still can be used today. Medicine is medicine and physiology has not changed since 1955, but there are things we are attempting to harmonize. We are working with our federal partners to try to make that more proactive and seamless.
The Chair: However, you have not been consulted on what should be in the caches in the future, is that correct?
Mr. DiMonte: Not right now, no.
Senator Meighen: I am surprised, if not relieved, to know that medicines do not have a best-before date. We will hope for the best on that one. At least you know where the emergency caches are. When we heard first about these things, it turned out no one knew where the caches were — except someone who perhaps knew so in 1945 and was not around to tell anyone else, but that is another story.
I have a question analogous to the chair's question about what has changed for you since Canada Command was stood up in relation to your interoperability with the Armed Forces. What has changed, if anything, since the enactment of the Emergency Management Act, which goes back to June 2007? It has only been in force for a few months. Has anything changed?
Mr. DiMonte: I will let my colleague, Mr. Ash, address that. However, I want to clarify that, while the medicines have evolved and they do have a best-before date, there is other equipment in there to which I was referring.
Senator Meighen: I was teasing you, I must confess.
Mr. Ash: After the changes in the act, there has been no real impact at a municipal level. There may be provincial and federal impacts, but at the provincial level, our overriding emergency management legislation is provincial.
Senator Meighen: Do you expect anything to happen because of it? Do you foresee any impact? Would you like to see any impact or do you want to hang around and wait until we speak to the assistant deputy minister on that?
Mr. Ash: My understanding of the changes is that they are broad and strategic in nature. I do not foresee any operation or tactical impact at the municipal level, as they are more federal and provincial. I cannot comment with regard to my knowledge set, but my counterparts may have something to add.
Ms. O'Sullivan: I do not pretend to be an expert in this area, but I have had the privilege of listening to Mr. Young on many occasions.
One issue that always comes up, and it came up with regard to SARS, is how to force people to quarantine. I am sure people believe there is a police agency that can mobilize in a situation where the issue of contamination is huge and can meet that need. I remember Mr. Young saying that we found that one of the biggest areas was people who volunteered to stay home if we could cover their cost, because some people have to put food on the table. That was an issue he raised. He also spoke about finding contamination from people going to the video store to get videos because they were staying at home. That became a source.
Legislation is usually an animal that takes a long time to change; regulations are simpler. Sometimes it is about taking those lessons learned and communicating change to the public. I am not an expert on that. I know the legislation looked at some of those issues and challenges. We are all preparing for pandemic, yet many things we look at are human resource issues. It might include running a daycare so that our members have the confidence that they can come to work. It might be different avenues that we can take of those lessons learned that will get us the most effective results. I cannot add any more to the legislative piece but there has been a real opportunity in this country to learn from that and to listen to people who sometimes have interesting ideas about where we need to be looking.
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: Ms. O'Sullivan started to give me an answer; I will continue in this vein.
You mentioned human relations and human resources. I would like to know whether in your preparation plans and exercises, you evaluate the psychology of the individuals to whom you entrust these daunting tasks, such as overseeing emergency measures. I find that a very important aspect. It is easy to plan emergency situations on paper, but when they actually occur, human psychology takes over.
You may tell me that all your police officers are prepared for emergency situations, but I have my doubts. I think that some people are more capable than others of remaining calm and coping with situations where staying calm is important, whereas other people lose their cool. Do you conduct this type of evaluation?
[English]
Ms. O'Sullivan: From a police perspective, you are absolutely correct. There are some people who can handle incident command and are competent to do it. We need to train and support those people. There are some people in organizations who do not have that area of expertise. When we ask people to do those functions, we ensure we are picking the right people to do them. We are supporting them. There are, in many cases, as you rightly identified, many life-threatening decisions that they will have to make. The best thing we can do for the people we ask to make those decisions is to arm them with information, training and an opportunity to learn from so that when they have to make those difficult decisions they make them based on those criteria, and that we give them that framework of decision making as well.
A wise person said this: At the end of the day, if an emergency happens, did you have a plan and did you practise the plan?
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: I am sorry to interrupt you, but I think evaluation is important. You can educate someone, give him or her information, but does that mean that this person will be capable of managing an emergency situation, that is my question. Do you feel that your staff is psychologically capable of overseeing such situations? It is not just a question of training. Can your employees take the pressure?
[English]
Ms. O'Sullivan: We do not in my service — and I can only speak about that — in terms of the commanders that we have. We do have incident command training. They are evaluated on the training portion. If there were significant issues, they would not be recommended to continue in the program. There is a national incident commanders program and we train there with other police services.
Some services do that, but with the national commanders program there is a level where, if a person were foreseen to have problems, there would be some conversations with the organization.
Senator Nolin: Mr. Ash, do you think it is needed?
Mr. Ash: I guess your question refers to what happened in Katrina where a bunch of people left.
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: I did not have any assumptions. Some people think that they are capable of dealing with emergency situations but they are not, even with training and all the determination in the world. I am sure that your paramedical employees have to make such decisions, perhaps even more often than police officers, and in my opinion, a person's psychological ability to deal with an emergency situation must be evaluated.
[English]
Mr. Ash: We do not specifically test for that as indicated. However, as Ms. O'Sullivan indicated, when we do our training, if there are specific issues at a city level regarding a commander or an individual, let us say an EOC or at the site, those issues would have to be dealt with and would be dealt with by the individual service. If it were deemed not appropriate for that person to continue or fulfil that role, that is what would happen. There is no proactive assessment. You can argue whether those are valid or have weaknesses, but at the same time we do not specifically do that. We do it more as an integrated training approach.
Senator Nancy Ruth: Mr. Ash, you talked about having a group of numbers within an area and you could phone out messages. Does that include cellphones?
My second question is more interesting to me. There are many federal operations that happen outside of Ottawa. Do you know, Mr. Ash, what kind of coordination there is between you as the City of Ottawa and, say, Charlottetown, with the Department of Veterans Affairs, or any other city that has a major operational branch of the government, to lobby together to get some of the things you want from the federal government? Do you have any coordination of that?
Mr. Ash: First, dealing with public notification, I can only speak of the systems available and my knowledge in that regard. Some public notification systems allow for a passive sign up. An individual could sign up — for example, if there is an emergency broadcast, call this number. That could be done, or it is done geographically by household phone numbers.
Senator Nancy Ruth: It is not by cellphones then?
Mr. Ash: If you wanted to sign up your specific cellphone number, you could do that.
Senator Nancy Ruth: I am thinking of university students who probably will not do that, but all use cellphones.
Mr. Ash: With the current system, you would have to identify that you wanted that service or not.
The second question, with regard to sharing information or lessons learned, there is an international association of emergency managers with a Canadian chapter. They would be the body involved and advocating on behalf of those global or holistic issues more broadly. However, if there are specific geographic ones, whether it is Halifax or whatever, they may find through those various networks they have lessons learned. Some emergency managers actually share their lessons learned, but it is not a required component; it is more passive.
Senator Nancy Ruth: I am asking if there is coordination between your city and other cities within Canada who also have head offices of federal departments to lobby the federal government for the things that you want.
Mr. Ash: No, not that I am aware of. Probably the City of Ottawa is in the forefront with regard to its maturity and relationship, because we probably have the greatest impact. We are more on the bleeding edge, as I sometimes call it.
The Chair: On behalf of the committee, I wish like to thank the four of you very much for appearing before us tonight. You have clearly attracted the committee's attention. We have run 20 minutes past what we anticipated, but we are grateful to you for sharing your information and knowledge with us.
For members of the public who are viewing this program, if you have any questions or comments, please visit our website at www.sen-sec.ca. We post witness testimony as well as confirmed hearing schedules. Otherwise, you may contacts the committee clerk by calling 1-800-267-7362 for further information or assistance in contacting members of the committee.
Our next witness is Mr. Scott Broughton from Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada. He is a Senior Assistant Deputy Minister at the Emergency Management and National Security Branch. The branch's responsibilities include: Emergency analysis; warning and response including the Government Operations Centre, GOC, and the Canadian Cyber Incident Response centre; emergency management policy; emergency preparedness and recovery including the Canadian Emergency Management College; and the national security policy.
He is joined today by Ms. Suki Wong. Mr. Broughton, welcome to the committee.
Scott Broughton, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Emergency Management and National Security, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada: Thank you very much. I was asked to help you understand the role we play. The public safety portfolio was created in 2003. The mandate is to exercise leadership and ensure coordination at the national level relating to public safety and emergency preparedness.
In emergency management, we exercise leadership in a number of ways. We coordinate and set priorities for our portfolio, and we coordinate among government institutions and in cooperation with the provinces and territories. The minister, deputy minister and myself all co-chair federal-provincial-territorial meetings at those various three levels of government.
The agency also coordinates the federal response to emergencies in Canada and into the U.S. Much is coordinated through the Government Operations Centre. We had a major role to play in terms of Canada's assistance to the U.S. after Hurricane Katrina.
We also established standardized elements for emergency plans within the Government of Canada, so the continuity of constitutional government is something with which we work closely. We play a role in monitoring, evaluating and testing the robustness of emergency management plans of government institutions, and, finally, in enhancing cooperation with other jurisdictions and entities by promoting common standards and information sharing.
The Government Operations Centre provides a strategic level of coordination on behalf of the Government of Canada in response to emerging or occurring events in the national interest. It conducts around-the-clock monitoring and provides early identification and reporting of the incident. It is a 24/7 operation. It provides situational awareness by collecting, analyzing and reporting incident-related information to support decision making by various internal and external shareholders. It conducts risk assessments and related issues and impacts that may affect the national interest in support of response and planning activities. It develops and implements incident-specific whole-of-government contingent and action plans based on risk assessments. For example, around the 2010 Olympics, it does pandemic planning in the federal emergency response plan.
The GOC manages the national-level response to events, inclusive of the federal governments and agencies, provincial and territorial governments, non-governmental agencies and private-sector and international partners. Finally, it monitors and analyzes cyber attacks and threats against the Government of Canada and coordinates a federal response to cyber threats affecting the functioning of the government.
With respect to our major funding programs, the main one is the Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangement, known as the DFAA. It is a mechanism for federal cost sharing of provincial-territorial expenses incurred in response and recovery from natural disasters. This is after-the-fact funding. It was created in 1970 and has been applied to 150 events across the country with a total federal contribution to provinces and territories of over $1.8 billion in that period of time. Earlier changes were announced and they have been developed in collaboration with the province and territories and applied to events occurring on or after January 1 of this year. There are a number of revisions to the guidelines.
The other program that is commonly known is the Joint Emergency Preparedness Program, JEPP, created in 1980 to enhance provincial, territorial and municipal emergency response and recovery capacity with a total federal commitment to date of over $150 million. We funded things such as the development and exercising of municipal emergency plans, communications equipment, specialized response vehicles and associated equipment and training and establishment of local emergency operation centres. Following the events of September 11, 2001, JEPP has been used to fund chemical, biological radiological and nuclear — CBRN — equipment for first responders and to establish USAR — Urban Search and Rescue — teams in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Winnipeg and Halifax. The federal funding for JEPP is $5 million per year and we as a department work closely with our provincial and territorial colleagues to set funding priorities and parameters.
The Canadian Emergency Management College is a hidden gem in the federal government. EM training in Canada is a shared responsibility across all jurisdictions. The Canadian Emergency Management College is the federal government's focal point for EM learning.
We deliver training to municipal first responders and response officials. We have two basic programs — the Emergency Management Training Program and the Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Training Program. Provincial and territorial emergency management offices are key partners for the college. EMOs recommend students for courses, and students attend free of charge, including accommodation.
The college trains approximately 1,300 students per year on site, with that number increasing to 4,700 when you include train the trainer, remote delivery, CD and E-learning efforts.
The national exercise program is a significant part of what we do in my branch, Emergency Management and National Security. We support the continuous improvement of the federal government's emergency response capability. The department stages regular national and international exercises involving civilian and military resources to assess the adequacy of the national system against various emergencies. We work with other federal government departments, local, provincial and the territorial emergency management offices, critical infrastructure owners and operators, NGOs and other partners to develop the exercises and to test them.
For example, the department is currently working with Newfoundland and Labrador to test its tsunami readiness, and there is another one to test the urban transit sector.
Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada also cooperates on international exercises such as the U.S. TOPOFF — top officials — series and combined military and civilian response exercises with NORAD and NORTHCOM.
The Emergency Management Act came into force on August 3, 2007. It repealed the old emergency preparedness act. The scope and applicability of the new EMA are identical to that of the previous EPA. Significantly, the act has clarified the responsibilities of federal ministers, and it makes the minister of public safety responsible for exercising leadership for emergency management in Canada. It is the foundational federal legislation for emergency management. It promotes a common approach to emergency management and clearly supports collaboration with provinces, territories and local entities. While its authority is limited to the federal level of government, it does provide the authority for federal cooperation and support to provinces and territories if requested.
The act, of course, reflects the four pillars of emergency management: prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. For the first time, it recognizes critical infrastructure protection as a key component of emergency management.
A significant new element of the EMA is the lead role that Public Safety Canada has in consultation with the Department of Foreign Affairs in response to emergencies in the United States. There are specific responsibilities of the Minister of Public Safety and other ministers, which I would be happy to go into, but I think I have used up my time. I will stop there. I welcome questions and discussion.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator Meighen: Thank you and welcome, Mr. Broughton and Ms. Wong.
I want to deal with the Emergency Management Act because, as fate would have it, I was the sponsor in the Senate of that act. It has now been in force for about six months. As you said, it calls upon the minister to exercise leadership. It does not give the minister authority, as I read it, to stand in the stead of another minister, and each government department is responsible for creating its own emergency preparedness plan.
Have the ministers done so? Is there an interdepartmental emergency plan? To what extent are you authorized or able to audit these emergency plans of your other government departments?
Mr. Broughton: We have recently created, at the ADM level, an emergency management committee, which is a horizontal committee across the federal government dealing with all the issues that we just described. We have been at play for the last 12 months or so working through issues like business continuity plans, national exercises, the overall state of readiness of the federal government as a whole and individual government departments. That is the main committee at my level that works toward the issues you have been asking about.
Inside my organization there is a group that has expertise around the development of business continuity planning and emergency preparedness. They work closely with other federal government departments to ensure that their planning processes incorporate the kinds of things we are doing.
We also work closely with the Treasury Board Secretariat, which, as the employer for the federal government, has the responsibility to ensure that business continuity planning is done for employees. There is also a deputy level committee that looks at these kinds of issues. Where necessary, we take them to the appropriate cabinet committee.
Individual ministers are responsible for two things: They and their deputies are responsible for the business continuity of their departments as an entity, as a sub-employer, if you will, or as an employer within the federal government; and many of them carry a responsibility across the entire federal system, depending on their portfolios. The health minister, for example, would have a responsibility to be involved and lead initially around a pandemic, for example. Our minister and we as officials have been working with other departments and their ministers to ensure that there is a coordinated effort around each of those kinds of events.
The minister of health, for example, needs to have a business continuity plan for the running of the Department of Health as well as for national leadership in the event of a pandemic. We, of course, would be working closely with the health minister.
On most emergencies that would be of a national nature, it is understood among most of us that in the initial days we will likely have a responsible minister, be it of health, environment or transport, carry an initial responsibility around the incident or the subject, but often, as the magnitude of a problem increases, someone in the government as a whole might ask the Minister of Public Safety to look at the broader issue or a cabinet committee may take over. Those processes are all in place with respect to what is in the act.
Senator Meighen: Other than what you have mentioned, do I understand correctly that you do not have an auditing function?
Mr. Broughton: Between ourselves and the Treasury Board Secretariat, we do have a process whereby not only do we provide the expertise around business continuity planning, but we also work with the departments and agencies to ensure that, in our view and theirs, the plans are sufficient for what they need to do.
I am hesitant to call it an official audit process. The Treasury Board Secretariat might see themselves as doing something more official. We view ourselves as working with them as opposed to auditing them. At the end of the day, it might amount to the same thing.
Senator Meighen: I wonder where the stick is in the event that you or anyone else is dissatisfied with the progress. How would you go about telling department X that you do not think their plan is as advanced as it should be or that it is not a great plan?
Mr. Broughton: At the officials' level we would do that. I would be comfortable at my level telling my colleagues that in my view the plan is insufficient. I would have to do so in a collegial fashion and with some good understanding of what had to be fixed. If we felt the matter was serious enough or that we were not getting cooperation, we would raise it to other levels. We would talk to our deputy and the minister. The minister has indicated to us that he would be prepared to talk to his colleagues about our view with respect to the state of business continuity planning and emergency preparedness.
Senator Meighen: Can you tell me whether the plans within various departments are just under way, well advanced or somewhere in between?
Mr. Broughton: All of the above, depending on the department. Some departments, for various reasons, have been at it longer and have sophisticated plans, and we would deem them to be in very good shape, as would they. Others are well along the way to making that happen and there are others that are just starting.
The larger organizations, the military and others, are far more advanced due to the nature of their business. Many of the smaller organizations that do not have many staff do not have the resources to work on this. We are mapping each one by department and agency.
Senator Meighen: If someone were to ask what the Emergency Management Act gave you that you did not have before, what it has allowed you to accomplish that you could not have accomplished before, how would you answer?
Mr. Broughton: In legislation, the minister is given the leadership responsibility around emergency management in the country.
Senator Meighen: Is it important to say, «This minister has the leadership role»? Does that give him the stick and authority, moral at least?
Mr. Broughton: I believe it does, and it is important. Much of the preparatory work in an emergency context requires people to work together, to be collaborative and collegial. People who are involved in emergencies — police, fire, paramedic, military and others — all recognize that at the point of an event you need an hierarchy in place. In terms of emergency management, it is helpful for someone to have the responsibility. In the Emergency Management Act, our minister has a specific responsibility, but so do all other ministers. All ministers are noted in the act, so each one has the responsibility in legislation to ensure that these things are in place. Our minister has a leadership and coordinating responsibility, which we do undertake. That act has given us the emphasis and force to work with our colleagues.
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: Mr. Broughton, I think we need to be clear and not play with words. We studied this bill not long ago, and I must say that if you had given us answers then like those you are giving us now, we would not have supported this bill, for the reasons that my colleague just mentioned.
I think my colleagues should know that the minister has full powers to assume this leadership, namely, to evaluate his colleagues, draft standards that will help each department prepare their plans and conduct the evaluations in question. In fact, Ms. Wong was questioned on this subject by the committee that is studying the Anti-terrorism Act.
Does the minister have the power to evaluate and judge the quality of the plans that must be prepared by the various departments? I think he does. Now, will he use these powers? That is another story.
[English]
Mr. Broughton: Between the Treasury Board Secretariat and ourselves, yes. The answer is yes, definitively.
Senator Nolin: Still yes.
Mr. Broughton: Still yes, an absolute yes.
Senator Nolin: Good.
Senator Meighen: I want to turn now to JEPP. I do not know if you were here at the time we heard officials from the City of Ottawa. While they appreciated funding, they had concerns about the program. A year or so ago, they told us of one of their complaints, a complaint we hear elsewhere in the country. The complaint is that the funding is too complex and too slow-moving a process. Ottawa mentioned some applications that date back to 2002. One also hears criticism that the criteria does not take into account, to an adequate degree, the needs of municipalities and that the municipal budget cycle does not align itself, making planning that much more difficult.
No doubt you have heard these complaints. Are you able to meet these concerns to any extent? What have you done so far to try to improve the system? Perhaps you could also deal with the difficult question of it being all very well to provide money to buy gas masks, but if gas masks have gone beyond their useful date and you have to get new ones, how does that work under JEPP, not to mention ongoing maintenance of equipment that is purchased?
Mr. Broughton: Many of the issues you raised are usually ones raised with us around the DFAA — the Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangement — where the payment is after the fact. It is possible, but I would be surprised if the JEPP funding goes back that far. It is usually the DFAA money that goes back because it is in response.
Senator Meighen: I am just talking about the slowness of the process.
Mr. Broughton: The DFAA is an after-the-fact process that requires an audit, so we hear from people about the time it takes. The JEPP one might have an off-cycle issue. I cannot change the fiscal year of the federal government, so we work with the fiscal year that we have. We do work with the provinces and territories to try to plan in advance so that, before their fiscal year starts, or at least before ours starts, provinces and territories, and therefore municipalities, would know what funding is available to them in terms of JEPP.
JEPP has been around for a long time. I do not doubt that it has some limitations, but in terms of feedback that we get from provinces and territories, who we work closely with in terms of developing this program, JEPP is probably one of the most favoured programs that we have. They find it to be extremely useful. I am sure the magnitude will never be enough. That is obviously an issue.
Regarding the timeliness of payments, I would have to check. I am not aware that JEPP is particularly problematic. DFAA is one, and I alluded to changes we have made that the minister announced recently. We are trying to speed up the DFAA process, but I would have to check on JEPP.
Senator Meighen: Does JEPP provide for ongoing maintenance?
Mr. Broughton: No. Federal funding as negotiated with the provinces and territories has a variety of arrangements. Sometimes, the federal government will say: We will buy the capital goods if you can operate it. Sometimes we do it in reverse. In lucky circumstances, we will do both. Frequently, we have a process where we provide capital funding. For the gas masks, the arrangement that the provinces and territories would agree to, and therefore the municipalities, is that they would have ongoing funding. They, like the rest of us, find their budgets are strapped.
Senator Meighen: HUSAR, for example, Heavy Urban Search and Rescue.
Mr. Broughton: That is a perfect example where there was substantial funding put in by the federal government under the arrangement negotiated that they would then have to manage it. They would now tell you that they do not have that capacity, which is probably an issue in their budgeting cycle. Again, the magnitude of the program will always be an issue.
Senator Meighen: Last April, the committee was told that the National Critical Infrastructure Protection Strategy was being finalized. Has it been? If not, when will it be finalized and made public?
Mr. Broughton: The strategy is a significant one that has to be worked out carefully with the provinces and territories. The vast majority of critical infrastructure is owned either by the private sector or by provinces and territories. The federal government has some. The national strategy was always targeted at being a collaborative effort across all jurisdictions and with the private sector to ensure that the things that needed to happen around the critical infrastructure would happen. We have been working on it with our provincial and territorial colleagues over the last while. The federal-provincial-territorial ministers, in their recent meeting in Halifax, reviewed what stage the strategy is at. We have agreed to do a concentrated, consultative effort with the private sector in the coming weeks. Once we have done that, we will try to finalize the strategy in the next few months.
Senator Meighen: Do you have any indication of when we might expect to receive the follow-up questionnaire we sent on September 19, 2007, with respect to responses to our recommendations?
Mr. Broughton: I do not have an answer for you. I could get that for you.
Senator Meighen: Could you have a look and see where that is?
Mr. Broughton: Yes.
The Chair: It is of considerable concern to us. We got an initial response prior to that, but a year has elapsed and we do not think the department is putting forward its best position if the information we have is a year old. It would be helpful.
Mr. Broughton: We will do that expeditiously.
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: I would like to come back to the issue of critical infrastructure. We know that the minister has divided all critical infrastructure into ten sectors and you can correct us if we are wrong. Have you transmitted this information concerning the division of critical infrastructure to the local, provincial and especially municipal authorities? In other words, do cities like the City of Ottawa know how to identify each of these sectors of critical infrastructure, at least that you considered critical?
Second, are they involved in the development of your strategy? Do they participate? You told us that the provinces do, but do the municipalities?
[English]
Mr. Broughton: I do not see any reason why the information we have or the notion of the 10 sectors would not be available to the municipalities. In the time that I have been in this job, we have not had the direct contact with cities or municipalities to explain this to them. The work on critical infrastructure — in fact, most of the work we do — is done through the provinces and territories, so from my point of view, I would assume that the provinces and territories have those discussions with the municipalities.
However, in terms of us going out and meeting with them directly, we have not done anything. The provinces and territories prefer that we not do that. They like us to work through them. Having said that, the notion of the 10 sectors — what they are, which federal departments manage them and so on — is all easily available and public information, but we have not specifically gone, for example, to the City of Ottawa and had that discussion.
In terms of what represents critical infrastructure, the way the legislation is laid out is flexible. The definition of what critical infrastructure is in Ottawa — or any municipality, or province or territory — is entirely dependent on how the jurisdiction, either the municipality, province, territory or even the private sector, views it. Our perspective is to try to work with those jurisdictions to agree on what the critical infrastructure is. The 10 sectors have existed for many years.
It has been a useful way for the federal government to organize itself because it is virtually impossible, from one department, to try to do that with all the various sectors. As you know, we have the 10, but we do not deal directly with the cities in that sense.
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: The new act has undergone a rigorous review. As concerns the intellectual property of technologies in the private sector, many of these sectors of activity are critical infrastructure. Can you explain to the committee how the new act protects intellectual property and knowledge that is in the hands of the private sector?
[English]
Suki Wong, Director Critical Infrastructure Policy, Public Safety and Emergency Preparation Canada: Thank you for that question, Senator Nolin. First, the new legislation recognizes critical infrastructure protection as an important element of public safety. That first element is really important to how we work with the provinces in terms of protecting critical infrastructure in each province.
Second, the legislation also recognizes the private sector's role in critical infrastructure protection as well as public safety. We have those two factors. It addresses critical infrastructure protection by calling on each department to identify the risks in its own area of responsibility.
For example, Transport Canada would be responsible for identifying a risk to the transportation sector and for ensuring they have plans in place to identify and address those risks.
In terms of intellectual property, how we protect information, through the Emergency Management Act there is a consequential amendment to the access to information legislation that makes it explicit that any information shared by a third party, which would be the private sector on their systems and networks on the proprietary information that relates specifically to critical infrastructure, is excluded.
Senator Nolin: Have you made possible the exchange of that secured information with other jurisdictions — namely, provinces and municipalities through the province, if needed?
Mr. Broughton: We do not have a formal arrangement for that at this point.
Senator Nolin: It should be part of your strategy.
Mr. Broughton: It is, to have a discussion with the provinces and territories. It is probably the most delicate part of the critical infrastructure game. The definition of critical infrastructure and the nature of what all of that is and the sectors is the easy part. The challenge is sharing information in terms of what the threats are and what the individual owners and operators believe the threats are and what information they have available. That will formulate the discussions as part of our strategy.
Senator Nolin: One of the powers of the minister is the oversight on exercise planning. When you read the list of powers, more than half of the powers are to prevent and plan properly for emergencies.
To what extent is your department including municipalities in that exercise?
Mr. Broughton: We manage and coordinate a program of exercises across the federal government in terms of major exercises done inside the federal government, and international exercises and others done with provinces, territories and municipalities.
There is not a specific part of the program that attempts to get at every municipality in the country, but there are opportunities in many of those exercises for municipalities to play. In the design of an exercise, we will sit down with the appropriate government departments — whether federal, provincial or territorial — and with cities and involve them in some of those exercises.
I do not have the information with me, but a number of municipalities have been involved in exercises that have been run by the federal government.
Senator Nolin: Is Ottawa one of them?
Mr. Broughton: I actually do not know. At least in the recent past, I am aware of cities other than Ottawa. I will have to check on that. I do not think Ottawa has been involved in a recent one for sure. They may have been in the past, but not recently.
Senator Tkachuk: Welcome. I had asked the previous witnesses about when an emergency was an emergency and who is in charge. They talked about all of the police, fire and everything on both sides of the river, in Hull and the Ottawa region.
They also said they had the RCMP involved federally in the parliamentary precinct with the security people in the House of Commons and the Senate.
There has been some talk about interoperability and talking one to the other and that the communication systems are not necessarily conducive to people talking to each other. The Ottawa Police Service, provincial police and the RCMP are on different communication systems.
Is there any difficulty there? The Americans put a lot of money into this stuff, but we do not seem to be doing that.
Mr. Broughton: I would not claim to be an expert on interoperability, but I do know it is a problem worldwide in countries, across countries and within countries. Having effective communications where people can deal with one another technically and in terms of the level of secrecy is a challenge. We have efforts under way where we are trying to look at technological solutions where, for example, within the federal government we can talk to one another. I am not an expert on that, but interoperability is a challenge.
I should point out that our responsibility is primarily a national one, from a public safety point of view. Much of what I talked about in my remarks and what we are talking about now involves our national responsibility with the Government Operations Centre.
In terms of the individual business continuity for the entities that might be working with the city, those belong to the individual entities: Public Works as a landlord in some cases, individual government departments; on the Hill, the Speakers of the Senate and of the House of Commons; the Governor General's office; the Supreme Court of Canada — all of those entities have their own responsibility to ensure that they have a business continuity plan that should speak to what they would do in the event of an emergency, including the policing arrangements.
Those specific arrangements are for those entities to be working with the appropriate authorities, either the RCMP or the local police. I am trying to make the point that there is a difference, from our point of view, in terms of the responsibility we have around national issues versus the fact that this is the capital, and the City of Ottawa is worried about us as citizens and tenants, if you would.
The one thing we do have responsibility for in public safety, and our minister has, is what we call the continuity of constitutional government. That would be a dramatic event when all of the entities were affected. We are working with the Privy Council Office, which has an overseeing responsibility to ensure there is a game plan for all of those entities.
In terms of the individual arrangements, it really is the individual entities, the RCMP or the people who provide security services on the Hill, to be working out those arrangements. We would advise people in terms of what those plans should look like, but we would not get personally involved in making those arrangements.
For example, in an evacuation on the Hill, communication between the House of Commons and the Senate or whomever and the RCMP and the Ottawa Police Service, or whoever we are working with, are arrangements that they would have that we would not get involved in. We would get involved in an incident where the Government Operations Centre needed to be involved so that we could advise the government as a whole, but the actual response function belongs to others.
The Chair: To clarify your response about the Senate and the House of Commons, the Speaker of the House of Commons has that responsibility by virtue of chairing the board of internal economy. The Speaker of the Senate does not chair the Internal Economy Committee in the Senate; another senator chairs that committee. Therefore, you should modify your answer in the future.
Mr. Broughton: Thank you.
Senator Tkachuk: I thought it would be a longer answer.
Mr. Broughton: I cannot imagine what else I would say.
Senator Tkachuk: I will continue on with the ability to communicate. Can all of these groups communicate with each other easily now in the City of Ottawa?
Mr. Broughton: Technically.
Senator Tkachuk: Technically. Let us say there is a question of national emergency. Let us go back to my earlier supposition where you have two government buildings being blown up. There is an emergency. There is fire and death and there are problems, and of course, the unknown. Is it the first or is it the last? All of those things are taking place. Can the RCMP, the city police and the fire department communicate with each other easily? Is it easy for them? If they are all on different systems, how difficult is it? Would it be a serious problem?
Mr. Broughton: My understanding is they have the capacity to communicate. I am not technically aware enough to know precisely how they do it. Whether the RCMP and the City of Ottawa police could, you need to get those two in a room and ask them that question. We have a capacity to have connections and communications with people to tell us what is going on in terms of people telling us what is going on through the Government Operations Centre.
However, the response from the City of Ottawa would be as it would be for any incident. My understanding is that they do have the capacity. Is it sufficient, perfect or whatever, I am afraid I am not technically aware enough to be able to answer that question. I am sorry.
The Chair: Is not the capacity to communicate dealt with by your operations centre, the police communicate back to the operations centre and then sitting beside the policeman in the operation centre is a fireman who communicates the message to the fire department?
Mr. Broughton: Not in our Government Operations Centre.
The Chair: Not in your Government Operations Centre but in the City of Ottawa's. You would have the equivalent in your operations centre?
Mr. Broughton: I am sorry, senator, the equivalent meaning what?
The Chair: Meaning you would not have to have one individual talking to another individual's radio. If you have an op centre that you can communicate back to, they in turn can communicate to everyone else involved.
Mr. Broughton: I assume that is it what the City of Ottawa has. Our Government Operations Centre is set up that way, but with our federal colleagues and with our provincial and territorial colleagues. In their emergency centres, that is exactly what happens. I understood the question to be talking about RCMP and police and fire and so on. I assume they can talk to one another but I am not —
Senator Tkachuk: That is my assumption. They all have to get together in one place. They communicate to one guy. That person communicates back, but they all have to be in one place to communicate. We cannot do it from person to person. I do not know if that is a problem you have identified or whether you think it is a problem or if it has been brought to your attention, or is it a dead issue?
Mr. Broughton: From a federal government point of view, it is not an issue that someone would bring to us in Public Safety. We have our Government Operations Centre. In terms of how we function, we are satisfied we have those links we need to other federal departments primarily through their operation centre and operation centres in the provinces and territories. Perhaps where I do not understand you is when you move to the municipal level. I assume those connections are there, but I am not expert on how they necessarily run their operation. I assume the people you had here earlier might be able to help you with that.
Senator Tkachuk: I have a question on when the federal government gets involved. If there is a pandemic — and there was a fear of one with SARS a while ago. The Minister of Health, who is our Minister of Health federally, was in charge in Ontario — when does the federal government step in, or does it at all? When it crosses borders? Does it step in before, just in case it may cross borders? How will that work? Does the Minister of Public Safety have to say, ``Oh, I have to get involved in this,'' or is there some triggering mechanism that would cause the federal government to be involved?
Mr. Broughton: Are you asking generally or specifically around pandemics?
Senator Tkachuk: Pandemics. We will use that as a good example.
Mr. Broughton: Most emergencies and events as you would have heard and spoken about start out being local and then move on. The hierarchy we have in this country has a local response immediately. In the case of a pandemic, you will not necessarily know immediately it is a pandemic by definition. As an event unfolds and the seriousness of it increases, different levels of government engage. In the past, that was done on a fairly slow boat because things happened more slowly and communications were slower. In this day and age, the federal, provincial and territorial governments are instantly aware of what is happening.
In this early stage, even if we do not know whether we are dealing with a pandemic yet, our Government Operations Centre would be working with Health Canada, the Public Health Agency and others and would be made aware of what is happening. Our initial role is primarily one of information, ensuring that a broad community of people in the federal government is aware of any information we have, and we can work with one another to figure out what has to happen.
In the early days of a health incident like that, the primary responsibility absolutely sits with Health Canada and the Public Health Agency to work with their provincial-territorial colleagues and other health officials to figure out what the problem is. Do we actually have a pandemic? Do we need to look at something outside the borders of one hospital, one city or one province?
I think the federal government would be interested, involved and aware and talking to others, even if it were a contained issue in Montreal, Toronto or Halifax or wherever, clearly with a concern for what could happen. Once it gets beyond one or two places then, obviously, it becomes of significant national interest.
In terms of running the incident and managing it — and I was the ADM of Population and Public Health Brach at Health Canada when SARS hit — the challenge was to acknowledge and recognize that the running of the health system is not done by the federal government. It is actually provincial and territorial responsibilities. Making the hospitals work and figuring out a plan of action to react to people who are sick or how we will do that is done by the provinces and territories, and it requires the federal and provincial governments to work closely together.
Where the federal government tends to step into a circumstance like that is where you start looking at issues around where the virus came from or where the pandemic started. What are we doing in terms of the movement of people? Is there any need to worry about that? Can the provinces and territories handle it, or is there need for the federal government to look at things that are happening around airports or our borders and so on?
One of the big issues the federal government would be dealing with is its relations with other countries because we would think this would come from other places. Around SARS, that was a big issue. A lot of my time was spent from a federal point of view dealing with the Americans, the World Health Organization and other places.
The Chair: On that subject, how effective would you say the effort of the federal government is, dealing with the customs and immigration level, identifying possible entrants to Canada who may or may not have been SARS carriers?
Mr. Broughton: A better person to answer that question might be someone from Health Canada, the Public Health Agency.
The Chair: You will recall that cameras were set up and heat measuring devices were set in place.
Mr. Broughton: At that time, there was a bit of a controversy over the value of those kinds of machines. The government of the day decided that it was beneficial to take the chance that they might be helpful as opposed to doing nothing.
I am not a health expert, but I did work at Health Canada, and the doctors advising me offered that one of the challenges was that there are many reasons why an individual might have an elevated temperature — and it was a challenge to figure out, for example, a pregnant woman.
The Chair: You had a lot of false positives?
Mr. Broughton: You would have gotten some of them right. Part of our pandemic planning exercise is to try to sort those kinds of things out in terms of the most effective way. Those particular machines, we all concluded as officials, were probably not all that useful.
The Chair: Thank you. Regarding op centres, can you describe the relationship between the Government of Canada op centre and Canada Command's op centre?
Mr. Broughton: There is a direct link between the Government Operations Centre that we run out of Public Safety and Canada Command, as there would be with the RCMP and probably eight or 10 other federal government operations centres. It is a direct link. They do not talk 24/7, but they are linked 24/7, as are we with all the provincial EMOs.
The Chair: How has the work changed since Canada Command has been stood up?
Mr. Broughton: I do not want to be overly speculative, senator, because I have only been in this job for about a year. In this job, I do not have experience pre-Canada Command.
The sense I have talking to people is that the situation is much better. My personal relationship with General Dumais is excellent. I would say that the relationships now are excellent. I have to assume they are better, but it would be speculation on my part to say they were not good before. All I can tell you is that they are excellent today.
The Chair: What role does the department have in terms of developing best practices and serving as a corporate memory for provinces and municipalities in Canada?
Mr. Broughton: Around emergency preparedness, we have a significant role within the federal government. In terms of business continuity planning, exercises and the way emergencies are handled, we would play a significant role. I am not aware of anything we do that lays out standards or methods of operations other than working with the provinces and territories. In this country, in terms of a national system, it is really made up of individual systems across the country. Each province and territory is pretty sophisticated on its own and has a different way of organizing its centre. We would not have a process of standards, per se, in terms of how you would do business continuity or how to run an operations centre.
The Chair: For example, not all the provinces went through the ice storm experience but all provinces could go through a similar experience. Would you be good people to go to if someone received a forecast suggesting an ice storm? Would you be able to provide advice and counsel to them?
Mr. Broughton: There is a two-part answer to that. Possibly, but, more important, if we did not have the advice ourselves, we would make sure we could organize to get the help and advice.
The Chair: Do you not consciously keep a catalogue, a 20-minute brief, a two-hour brief or a two-day brief on how to educate people to deal with ice storms, blackouts, flood conditions, et cetera, so that people are not reinventing the wheel when these occur?
Mr. Broughton: Like all organizations in emergency preparedness across the country, through exercises and actual events, numerous reports are done. From that point of view, there is a learning process that happens in organizations. Whether we would have an expert sitting in the right place specifically experienced about ice storms at any given point in time, the answer is probably not. There are probably enough people who have expertise. I think our Government Operations Centre would have general and generic advice that would be of use. However, in terms of having people ready on each one of those, I am not sure we would have somebody sitting there at the ready.
The Chair: Why not?
Mr. Broughton: Immediate response is a provincial and territorial responsibility.
The Chair: Are you satisfied that that information rests with the provinces and that you can say, ``You should go and ask the people in Quebec''?
Mr. Broughton: Not necessarily. If we did not have it, I think we would be able to find it quickly.
Whether there is an expert sitting in our Government Operations Centre or some other place that knows exactly what to do around an ice storm, I think they would know what to do. However, in terms of having the 20-minute brief, I would have to go back and check with them to see if they have that in detail. Clearly, they have learned through those processes and could be of assistance. However, I have not seen something that precise myself. I would have to go back and ask.
Senator Mitchell: I will follow-up on the chair's questions about the exchange and availability of information on best practices and so on.
In 2006, this committee made a number of recommendations. In response to one of them, your department indicated that it has developed and is piloting a secure website that allows federal, provincial and territorial partners to exchange exercise information, lessons learned and best practices. That is a year and a half ago. What is the status of that website?
Mr. Broughton: I will have to check to see if I have it. I do not have it at my fingertips. If I do not have it before I leave, I will get it to you.
Senator Mitchell: Thank you.
Consistent with that line of questioning, the exchange of classified information is required under certain circumstance or in addressing certain circumstances and certain possibilities. Have steps been taken by Public Safety Canada to ensure that people at different levels of government — not in the federal department but in the municipalities and in the provinces — have the kind of clearance that they might need to deal with that information and to offer that information?
Mr. Broughton: It is not a problem within our system and the federal system because we have people with clearances. There are people that I am aware of at provincial and territorial offices that have the appropriate clearances and are able to achieve information. I am not sure that we have people in municipalities that have access; I will have to check. I am not aware of any that do. That does not mean they could not and that we could not share the information, but most of the people that I am aware of that have that capacity are in the provinces and territories. However, I will check with the municipalities.
It is not something that I personally work on, so I am not personally aware of this, but apparently the spring of 2009 is the target date to have the website further developed and completed.
Senator Mitchell: A good deal of the questions here, as you can tell, are related to the relationships because of the size of this country, due to the levels of government being diverse and the way in which we administer our government is complex. I have two questions around that.
That situation is compounded to some extent because there is a reluctance on the part of your department to intervene and there is a reluctance at the provincial level to have you intervene in certain ways. This is also true at the municipal level. However, as luck would have it, a large amount of the information, understanding, expertise and experience exists with the first responders — that is, the fire departments, the paramedics and the police departments.
Therefore, is there a structured way to solicit their input into emergency planning? What sorts of mechanisms are there to ensure that occurs? Are they pushed aside in the process of federal-provincial relationships in this area?
Mr. Broughton: I do not think anyone is pushed aside, honourable senator. In terms of their involvement around what response mechanisms might be best or might exist, the courses at our college that I talked about earlier are delivered in a significant way by police chiefs and fire chiefs. Municipal people are training municipal people. We would defer to them because they are the experts in terms of that kind of training.
The people who go through our college are actually trained, which is why I said earlier that people in cities, provinces and territories are more familiar with our college than the people in Ottawa are. We are careful and collegial with our provincial and territorial colleagues because they recommend and work with cities in terms of who should come. However, the delivery of it is done at that level.
In terms of emergency planning at large, it truly is a collaborative effort. The federal government is only there to support provinces, territories and municipalities in the event of an incident. The response is actually the responsibility of and managed by the experts on the ground.
An example is the preparation that we did around the worry last year regarding the potential for flooding in British Columbia. Throughout that whole effort, there was obviously some municipal engagement but it ended up being a provincial issue because of the number of sites that were potentially involved. Our role was to work with the province carefully and be prepared to assume a backup role. Public Safety Canada orchestrated the federal government assets in terms of their state of readiness to help the province if need be, but it was to be the province that directed the traffic.
In that sense, the structure is driven and managed by the expertise on the ground. If they need people from the Canadian Forces, Transport Canada or Environment Canada to help them, we are there to work with them to solve their problem. It is not us who defines, decides and dictates what emergency management should be in a response notion; they are the experts and we are simply there to support them. Our challenge is to ensure that we are ready to support them when they need the help.
Most provinces and territories would prefer to manage their circumstances on their own. There is nothing new about that. Our challenge is to be there to help them, but not to be seen to be doing so until necessary.
Senator Mitchell: There are certain areas in this process where you can imagine that consistent federal standards, if not necessary, would certainly offer something. An example would be in risk assessment. When a municipality or province does risk assessment, it gets back to the best practices idea.
Would you agree that there is a role for federal standards and parameters in defining the parameters of risk- assessment processes and planning, and are you doing any work at the federal level and with the provinces to create some national standards in that regard or in other areas that might be applicable?
Mr. Broughton: I do not want to be cute with the words, but there would be a difference between federal standards and national standards. I would say ``no'' to federal standards. I do not think there is a need or an interest or an appetite for us to create federal standards and try to dictate them to people.
National standards, where we work with colleagues and could agree on them, would obviously be of some benefit. We try to work closely with our provincial-territorial colleagues in a variety of ways to make that happen. By virtue of the number of times we function together, many of the operations, the way we talk and do things, end up being similar.
In terms of specific standard setting subject by subject, we would be happy to sit down and have the discussion, but we have not viewed it as something the federal government should arbitrarily or on its own create. The value of those standards would vary. If you have the opportunity to talk to some people from the provinces and territories, they would start out with the principle of why national standards make sense. When you get down to the crunch, you get into the differences of how they function, and you cannot compare a small community in Northern Quebec to whatever. You start to get into that dynamic, and it starts to get harder to do the national standard. It really does depend on what you are talking about. In principle, we would all say it has merit.
The Chair: We are looking for clarification of the words in the Emergency Management Act, promoting a common approach to emergency management, including the adoption of standards and best practices.
Mr. Broughton: The key word is ``promoting.'' We would do that. We would talk to our provincial and territorial colleagues about interoperability, the connection across emergency operations centres, the way in which we react to events and, to the extent we could standardize those, we would be promoting that.
The Chair: Have you a catalogue, or is there a list?
Mr. Broughton: Of?
The Chair: Of where you have achieved a common approach to emergency management. Are there areas that you can point to where there has been adoption of standards and best practices? Where is the repository of this?
Mr. Broughton: The senior officials responsible for emergency management, which is my level of organization across the country, are a group of ADMs or other levels. I co-chair that group with a provincial colleague. That group works at trying to standardize our approach — for example, the way in which we communicate with operation centres and the hierarchy in place in terms of standardizing how the federal government helps.
I think the issue is the use of the word ``standards.'' I accept what it says in the act, but I cannot think of specific examples that would constitute a standard per se. I would have to go back and look at it. In terms of working together and collaboration, that is probably where the majority of a common interest and common approach to emergency management happens.
The Chair: Once there appears to be a consensus about a best practice, is it then written down somewhere and put in a book so that when someone asks, ``What is the best practice in terms of dealing with X or Y?'' they can go to you or our office, and your office will say, ``Oh, yes, that is right here, and we can send you a copy of it.''
Mr. Broughton: Yes, and the best example would be the work being done through the Government Operations Centre. I would be happy to share a couple of examples that show the putting together of those practices and the agreement we have reached with provinces and territories in terms of national planning for emergencies.
The Chair: We would be grateful if you could do that.
Senator Meighen: On this question of standardized processes, HUSAR, Heavy Urban Search and Rescue, is a federally mandated, developed and funded program.
Mr. Broughton: We have made some financial contributions to five cities.
Senator Meighen: Just some?
Mr. Broughton: Yes, just to five cities.
Senator Meighen: Does your funding constitute the majority of the funding that these teams receive?
Mr. Broughton: I do not remember the percentage.
Senator Meighen: The federal government has played a significant role, but I understand that the standards they meet are different as between let us say Montreal and Toronto and Vancouver. Is that an area that you have looked at? Should we be concerned about that? Should we work towards having the same standard, or are they variations on acceptable standards?
The Chair: Vancouver has an international certification.
Senator Meighen: Yes. For example, the note says that Toronto bases its HUSAR team on National Fire Protection Association Standards, Vancouver on the UN standard and that Calgary uses elements of the FEMA, whatever that is.
The Chair: That is the U.S. one.
Mr. Broughton: There would be two schools of thought. There would be those who would want a precise, standardized approach everywhere, and others would say the principle of how you are trying to function has to be similar, but cities vary.
Senator Meighen: Who says that? Does your office say the differences are not significant, no problem, fine, or do you look at it and say, ``I am worried here that the differences are so marked, and we have to work on pulling this together more''?
Mr. Broughton: I think the principle effort around that regard would be done by cities themselves, and provinces and territories.
Senator Mitchell: If you are funding these cities with federal money, would you want some similarity of criteria or standardization of criteria upon which you are making your funding decisions?
Mr. Broughton: The funding decisions for something like that are primarily about getting the equipment to them. It is the responsibility of the recipient to make them work. That is where the challenge comes. Our program, as I am aware of it, and I will double check this to ensure that I am not misspeaking, was to make the equipment available, but the actual functioning of it was left to the municipalities.
As Senator Kenny pointed out, Vancouver had certain certification and others have different, and that would be their choice. I guess we could have a view, but it is left to them to manage, because the other school of thought is that if we tried to dictate something else to them, they would say, ``No thanks.''
The Chair: There are only five teams, and the assumption is that those five teams will cover off all of the country and, in fact, maybe more than that if circumstances warrant. We are aware of the limited sustainability of any of the teams. It will not be beyond 36 or 48 hours. The assumption is that other teams will come in and replace them. If they are not trained to the same standard, if they do not have the same procedures, you end up without having a sustainable HUSAR effort. That seems to me to be a compelling argument for the person who is providing the money for the equipment to ensure that there is a standard approach. Let the record show the witness is nodding.
Mr. Broughton: It is one school of thought, yes.
The Chair: What are the other schools of thought?
Mr. Broughton: That you let the people who have the equipment manage it and operate it.
The Chair: How do you ensure you have sustainability beyond 36 hours? Every city does not have one of those things. I would like an answer for this.
Mr. Broughton: I do not have an answer. I would have to check on this.
Senator Mitchell: Our note on federally mandated HUSAR teams says that there are five federally mandated ones, Toronto, Vancouver, Halifax, Calgary and Manitoba. Quebec is noticeably absent. Does that mean there is not a federally mandated one or that there is not one at all?
Mr. Broughton: I do not know. I would have to check.
Senator Zimmer: Regarding the Canadian Emergency Management College, has your department responded to complaints that it is too costly and inefficient to send only a few people per year to the college in Ottawa for training? Has your department considered the benefits to decentralizing training to make it available across the country?
Mr. Broughton: I am not aware of the complaints, although perhaps they have come. We would look at the training programs here and work with the provinces and territories to ensure that we are not duplicating something that has been done elsewhere. We would have a discussion happily about the potential to decentralize things to the extent that it is possible. Not all of the training is done in Ottawa because, as I indicated earlier, some of it is e-training. Specific complaints have not been brought to my attention so I would have to check with the college.
Senator Zimmer: The complaint is about the quantity, not the quality.
Mr. Broughton: I have not heard that complaint but I will check.
Senator Nancy Ruth: I made an assumption that the people who teach at the college are from all over and have expertise in the particular field in which they are giving a course.
Mr. Broughton: That is correct.
Senator Nancy Ruth: When at the college, they likely pal up with other trainers and then they go back to their respective homes. That might provide an opportunity to put together viable units to do regional training rather than keep it centralized, at least in one aspect of the training.
Mr. Broughton: Yes, that is possible.
The Chair: Could you comment on the role played by Public Safety Canadian officials assigned to regional officers? What responsibilities do they carry out?
Mr. Broughton: The primary responsibility is to work in the provincial setting with provincial emergency management offices in terms of the requirements of those offices. In the event of an incident or an emergency, they would work with the provincial office and directly with our Government Operations Centre. On the ground, they become our representative in the region in the event of an incident of some sort.
They also work with the groups of federal government departments and agencies who look at various things, including emergency management. They would be part of that system to provide advice and thinking around what they are doing regionally. They would be the main link for the federal government on the ground, from a public safety point of view, with the emergency management officers in the event of an incident.
The Chair: We have been the recipient of complaints from both provincial and municipal offices about federal regional officials. The complaint has been that, although they know there are four or five officers in place, they do not have a clue what they are doing. They want to know why the federal government is spending money on the officers when regional units are underfunded. It would seem they would rather have the cheque sent to them than have those five officers working in the city when they do not know what work they do.
Have you heard complaints of that nature?
Mr. Broughton: From the people I work with, no, I have heard such complaints. Most of the people I work with are senior officials responsible for emergency management — SOREM — and run their emergency management offices. From what I can tell, they understand what their role is and they work closely with the regional directors. I have not had that complaint brought to me.
The Chair: In respect of funding, the JEPP program and organizations like the Heavy Urban Search and Rescue groups recognize the value of receiving equipment. Currently, they are struggling with the problems in operating the equipment, and they have difficulty doing that.
Is there any reason to hold out hope to these people that there will be programs to provide them with funding so they may continue to operate?
Mr. Broughton: The JEPP program is a negotiated one whereby we do our best through discussions with the provinces and territories to make funding available to municipalities. From that point of view, it is a shared responsibility with the provinces and territories to figure out the ongoing funding of these programs.
Whatever funding is available is negotiated up front, and they understand that is the case. We work with the program that we have, which, like any program of the federal government, works through the budgetary cycle. Those decisions are made at the government level.
The Chair: I understand that. Are you aware of programs that will come to an end because of lack of funding, particularly HUSAR?
Mr. Broughton: I am aware that people have expressed concern about the need to find funding to keep HUSAR operating. No one has told me specifically that a program will stop at a certain time. The issue raised has been more general in nature.
The Chair: It is a broad issue.
Mr. Broughton: You are right. A general broad issue has been raised but a specific problem has not been identified. People have discussed ongoing funding in general terms.
The Chair: Is this a concern to the federal government?
Mr. Broughton: I believe it is a concern.
The Chair: Are steps under way to address the concern?
Mr. Broughton: Among the many budgetary pressures, it would be one.
The Chair: Can you provide the committee with some background on radio communications and operability strategy?
Mr. Broughton: One of my colleagues manages a unit around interoperability that is working on a specific project for secret communications, which is one element only of interoperability. The project is directed within the federal government and is aimed at achieving a secure communication channel among federal government departments. Beyond that, I am not aware of a specific program that we are working on.
The Chair: Are there any programs that would provide for mass communications in the event of disasters covering a range of areas?
Mr. Broughton: One of the directors general that works for me will appear before this committee, I believe next week, to talk about public alerting. He will attend with the CRTC and Industry Canada and will be prepared to provide the answers. We have a plan under way based on some recent CRTC decisions whereby we are working with the provinces, territories and private-sector companies to have a public-alerting system consistent across the country, even though much of the time the alerts would be regional. Many of the ministers who met in Halifax in January asked us to have that system up and running by 2010. That strategy is under way and my colleague will be happy to talk to you about the details next week when he appears before the committee.
The Chair: Mr. Broughton and Ms. Wong, thank you for testimony this evening. We have made note of the various areas that you have undertaken to provide us with more information and those will be indicated to you.
For members of the public, if you have questions or comments, visit us at www.sen-sec.ca where we 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 members of the committee.
The committee continued in camera.