Third Report- Volume I

The Honourable Colin Kenny, Chair
The Honourable J. Michael Forrestall, Deputy Chair

The Honourable Norman Atkins
The Honourable Tommy Banks
The Honourable Jane Cordy
The Honourable Joseph A. Day
The Honourable Michael A. Meighen
The Honourable Jim Munson
The Honourable David P. Smith, P.C.

*Austin, P.C. (or Rompkey, P.C.)
*Lynch-Staunton (or Kinsella)
*Ex Officio Members

The Honourable Colin Kenny, Chair
The Honourable J. Michael Forrestall, Deputy Chair

The Honourable Norman Atkins
The Honourable Tommy Banks
The Honourable Jane Cordy
The Honourable Joseph A. Day
The Honourable Michael A. Meighen
The Honourable David P. Smith, P.C.
The Honourable John (Jack) Wiebe

*Carstairs, P.C. (or Robichaud, P.C.)
*Lynch-Staunton (or Kinsella)
*Ex Officio Members

APPENDIX 1: Questionnaire On Community Preparedness For An Emergency Or Disaster

APPENDIX 6: Recommendations of the National Advisory Committee on SARS and Public Health (the Naylor Committee)

The Committee received a great deal of evidence during its examination of Canada’s approach to natural and man-made emergencies.

The Members hope that the material we have gathered and the conclusions that we have reached will lead to the creation of a response system that will serve Canadian citizens better than the current one does.

The Committee started work on this report before September 11, 2001, and we continued our work after the new prime minister implemented what was to be one of our major recommendations when he made the Deputy Prime Minister, the Honourable Anne McLellan, PC, M.P., responsible for the Ministry of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.

That’s an important start to reforming the Canadian emergency preparedness system, but only a start. What needs to be done will require significant resources and an unprecedented degree of teamwork among all levels of government in Canada.

Emergencies, by definition, require swift, efficient reaction if tragedy is to be averted. National emergencies are emergencies writ large. National emergencies require extremely well coordinated responses. Sophisticated planning, streamlined systems and adequate resources must be mobilized if devastation is to be minimized. Achieving this kind of fine-tuning is not easy in a country as administratively complex and geographically vast as Canada. But developing the capacity to respond swiftly and appropriately to national emergencies is vital to the well being of Canadians.

National emergencies are no longer rare in Canada. Consider a partial list of Canadian crises during the past few years: floods in Manitoba, the ice storm in eastern Ontario and Quebec, the E.coli outbreak in Walkerton, forest fires in British Columbia, Mad Cow in Alberta, SARS in Ontario, hurricanes in the Maritimes, the power blackout in Ontario, the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and the terrorist crisis since then.

Each of these events caused turmoil and significant economic damage, and in cumulative terms their cost was devastating. Even more importantly, many lives were lost. That a greater number of deaths did not occur is attributable, for the most part, to a combination of valiant local efforts and good luck. Canadians scrambled in the face of catastrophe, and most of us survived.

But what about next time? When it comes to man-made or natural crises, Canada has a history of muddling through. In a world that has become much more unpredictable, in which nature has become more capricious and man-made threats have become far more likely and far more ambient, muddling is not enough.

The most critical roles in responding to unexpected threats are invariably played by the people at the scene – the first responders. We Canadians depend upon the reactions of individual fire and police detachments, ambulance services, doctors, nurses, emergency response teams, enlisted soldiers and reserves and a wide variety of civic officials and volunteers to snuff out the impact of emergencies before they get out of hand.

For two and a half years, the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence has searched for answers to one question:

How can we help these people react to the very best of their abilities when major crises arise?

Where is federal government leadership needed most to ensure that Canada provides its citizens with the best protection possible at a reasonable cost?

There were not always nation states, and until relatively recently, there were not democratic nation states devoted to bettering the interests of all citizens. When human beings advanced to the stage of developing such states, the first principle was the physical protection of those citizens.

As powerful as they are, even the most advanced states do not have limitless resources. If Canada’s government did have access to limitless resources, clearly the country’s national health plan, as one example of an institution that offers physical protection to Canadian citizens, would not be undergoing the difficulties that it is today.

The Committee therefore undertook its investigations recognizing that no government or combination of governments can be expected to protect everyone all of the time.

However, we also recognize that any society worth preserving deserves a rational level of protection from abnormal threats – threats, as noted above, that have become more persistent, threats that are unlikely to disappear during any Canadian’s lifetime. Preventative measures are a tenet of good government and an indicator of an enlightened society.

Canadians, alas, have a chronic history of unreadiness. As Dr. Thomas Axworthy, former principal secretary to Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, remarked while testifying before the Committee, “Ethelred the Unready should be the patron saint of Canada.”[1]

The fact that Canada was unprepared for two world wars cost us many young lives. The fact that we are clearly so unready for a wide variety of potential disasters could cost us even more lives. Within the bounds of financial realism, there is no excuse for unreadiness. Governments are paid to be ready. That is how they earn their keep.

There is an old expression: “You can pay now, or you can pay later.” So inevitable are national disasters in any reasonable prognosis for Canada’s 21^st century that the Committee would amend this homily to: “We can pay now – or we can pay a lot more later.”

That is true in terms of protecting Canadians, and it is true in terms of sustaining our economic relationship with the United States. A rupture of that relationship would virtually bankrupt Canada. It is therefore a sobering thought that another major terrorist catastrophe in the United States would probably result in the sealing of the U.S. borders, which would cause a global depression comparable to that of the 1930s.

The Members began hearing testimony on emergency preparedness in July 2001. This report summarizes the evidence received from July 2001 to January 2004, and reflects the changes in the machinery of government made by Prime Minister Paul Martin in December 2003. The evidence came under the following four headings:

· Answers from Canadian first responders to an emergency preparedness questionnaire. Of the 100 surveys distributed, 86 responses were received.

The Committee heard testimony from federal government officials, provincial emergency managers, and first responders. Specifically, it heard from the Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness (OCIPEP), the former Department of the Solicitor General, the Privy Council Office, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Health Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, Transport Canada, the Toronto Police Service, the Toronto Medical Officer of Health, and Dr. Douglas Bland from Queen’s University.

The Committee was fortunate to gain additional insights into the challenges facing municipal personnel during its travels to Vancouver (twice), Winnipeg, Halifax (twice), Washington, D.C., Regina, Edmonton, Windsor, Montreal, and Toronto.

This report is part of a series investigating the security of Canadians. The core of the report examines interactions among federal, provincial and municipal planners and practitioners with regard to emergency preparedness. The Committee intends to focus more particularly on specific problem areas at a later date.

Neither our aboriginal ancestors, nor our immigrant ancestors, ever thought of Canada as a comfortable place. Challenged, as they were by the harshness of the winters, short growing seasons and general lack of amenities all around, comfort was the last word that came to mind. By the second half of the 20^th century, however, Canada had climbed to a lofty rung on the global comfort ladder.

Central heating helped, of course, but so did a general reduction in fear. Canada had become something of an international haven. Threats – even those as Draconian as nuclear war – seemed remote.

Our American neighbours have always thought of themselves as world winners across the board, but there is one category in which they have never been able to beat us: they have never felt as secure as we have. Canadians have national health care, fewer guns on the street,[2] and a different attitude with respect to involvement in at least some foreign wars.

It is somewhat ironic, then, that when it comes to physical crises, Canada’s threat management record has been quite dismal. Our ancestors weren’t ready for the North-West Rebellion in 1885, any more than Canada was equipped to handle the crash of Swissair Flight 111 in 1998, or the SARS crisis in 2003. Nor have we been ready for many big crises in between – including the two world wars.

Is the Committee exaggerating? We don’t think so. Anyone who wakes up to CBC Radio would have heard two reports within an hour of each other on the morning of November 18, 2003. The first, on the 8 a.m. news, talked about how completely unready the Canadian medical community was for the SARS outbreak. The second, on the topical news program “The Current,” quoted several rural British Columbians about how uncoordinated the initial response was to the horrific forest fires that devastated the province in the summer of 2003 (see Appendix 8, page 153).

In addition, of the eight large municipal respondents to a Committee emergency preparedness questionnaire, only four – Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa and Winnipeg – felt confident that they were prepared to deal with major emergencies, while the remainder – Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary and Hamilton – stated that their cities were “somewhat” prepared. None of the respondents in medium, small, or very small municipalities said that they were prepared to deal with major emergencies.

Perhaps Canada’s low-key, laid-back approach is part of our survival strategy. Americans tend to feel lost without a threat at hand. Our neighbours are nothing if not dramatic. We’re a quieter crowd.

It is true that sometimes the best way to avoid trouble is to turn away. Sometimes. But most often trouble finds people who aren’t paying attention to warning signs. Right now, Canada is not paying nearly enough attention to preparing for big bad moments. They might turn out to be as scary as the SARS epidemic, or the destruction of the World Trade Center towers. Or they could end up being a lot worse.

There are only two certainties. The first is that big, bad moments will come to Canada. The second, our investigations showed, is that Canadians are unprepared.

James Harlick, the assistant deputy minister responsible for the Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness (OCIPEP), testified as to the variety of natural and man-made threats facing Canada. Simple natural disasters, he said, are enormously expensive. The Saguenay River flood in Québec (1996), the Red River flood in Manitoba (1997), and the eastern Ontario / western Quebec ice storm (1998) racked up more than $5 billion in cumulative damages.

Such “Acts of God” are, by definition, unpreventable, but does that mean we should not prepare for them? Or does it make more sense to build stronger high-voltage transmission towers, design better dykes and flood ways, and have emergency networks in place to diminish loss of life?

What about man-made threats? Terrorism has managed to outstrip nuclear war as the greatest threat to world stability. Events in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere have clearly shown that America is not the only target. Anyone who associates with Americans – even independent aid agencies – are in the cross-hairs. The Committee’s last report in this series (Canada’s Coastlines: The Longest Under-Defended Borders in the World) opened with these paragraphs:

Terrorists don’t need bombs to disrupt computer networks, which are now the bloodstream of our economic lives. Computers control virtually everything that manual switches controlled two decades ago, from the flow of power through transmission lines, to street lighting to the flow of waterways. A survey published in 2002 by the United States-based Computer Security Institute concluded that 90 per cent of 500 government agencies, corporations, and medical, financial and educational institutions had detected cyber-security breaches in their systems the previous year.[3]

Terrorists also don’t need bombs to launch bio-terrorist attacks. In March 2000, Health Canada convened a conference to discuss the public health issues related to such attacks. The record of the discussion noted that an expert panel convened in 1999 by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that six micro-organisms posed the greatest public health threat:

Anthrax could be spread as an aerosolized biological weapon. The aerosol would be odourless and invisible and could travel many kilometres before disseminating.[4]

Smallpox can spread from contact with infected persons, or through direct contact with contaminated objects such as bedding or infected bodily fluids. On rare occasions, smallpox has spread through the air in enclosed settings.[5]

Yersinia pestis could be used in an aerosol attack causing cases of pneumonic plague. People would develop symptoms one to six days after infection.[6]

Food-borne botulism is a potential public health emergency because it could be transmitted through contaminated food.[7]

Tularemia could be weaponized and transmitted through the air. People would develop symptoms three to five days later.[8]

Viral hemorrhagic fevers are all highly infectious via the aerosol route. Most are very stable as aerosols and could be weaponized.[9]

· plague (treatable with a vaccine if administered within 12-24 hours of the onset of symptoms);

· anthrax (treatable with a vaccine if administered before symptoms emerge); and

However, there are no vaccines for most types of hemorrhagic fever (such as the Ebola virus). The exceptions are the new Argentine hemorrhagic fever vaccine that is an investigational drug and the yellow fever vaccine.[10]

Health Canada has determined that a terrorist attack employing one of these biological agents would be disastrous. Using a CDC model and Canadian data, it concluded that under certain conditions an anthrax attack on 100, 000 Canadians would result in 50, 000 anthrax cases, 32, 875 deaths, 332, 500 hospitalization days, and a cost of
$6.5 billion.[11] Despite this, of the six micro-organisms listed above, only for smallpox does Health Canada have a specific plan. The others are handled as part of its generic all-hazards approach.

1. Health Canada develop a national plan to counteract potential outbreaks of the other five micro-organisms, and that it report to Parliament and the public by 31 March 2005 that this is completed.

Why should we be paying more attention? Partially because there is a growing possibility that Canada will be targeted. But also because we have become an easier target. Mr. Harlick told the Committee that there are four reasons why Canada’s risks have become magnified:

1. The country’s population and wealth are increasingly concentrated in a small number of highly vulnerable areas;

2. Climate change is expected to increase the frequency and severity of extreme weather events;

3. Canada’s infrastructure is aging, making it more susceptible to damage; and

A computer hacker in Australia, Mr. Harlick pointed out, altered the control mechanisms in 100 sewage pumping stations, causing 1 million litres of raw sewage to overflow. In February, 2000 a 15-year-old Montrealer who called himself “Mafia Boy” caused an estimated $1.2 billion in business losses through a series of denial-of-service attacks.

Natural Disasters. Biological threats. Technological dependency. Terrorism. A country that isn’t paying attention to its vulnerabilities in these areas should share a spot with Alfred E. Neuman on the cover of Mad magazine: What me worry?

What measures has the federal government taken in response to the increased likelihood of national disasters? What institutions are mandated to respond to the challenge, and what systems and resources have been put in place?

In February 2001, former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien announced the creation of the Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness (OCIPEP) to replace Emergency Preparedness Canada. “The protection of Canada’s critical infrastructure from the risks of failure or disruption is essential to assuring the health, safety, security and economic well-being of Canadians,” said the Prime Minister.[12] For the next two and a half years, OCIPEP would be located within the Department of National Defence.

Mr. Harlick told the Committee in July 2001 that it is OCIPEP’s role to provide national leadership and serve as the focal point for Canada’s emergency preparedness. Coordination with other departments and agencies – including the then Office of the Solicitor General and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) – was essential to that role. According to Harlick OCIPEP has responsibilities in many areas that connect with emergency preparedness, including:

Mr. Harlick also discussed OCIPEP’s national coordination role. He said that in the event of an emergency, the organization would use its monitoring centre to work with key emergency management partners in all orders of government. The challenge, he said, is that this would require an unprecedented level of cooperation inside and outside of government.[13]

OCIPEP’s attempts to develop a National Disaster Mitigation Strategy (NDMS) indicate that inter-governmental coordination is not easy to achieve. In 2002 OCIPEP held consultations on developing such a strategy with provincial and territorial governments, representatives of the private sector and non-governmental organizations. These discussions were summarized into a proposed NDMS framework, which led to further consultations in 2003.[14] But more than two years after September 2001, there is still no strategy in place.

More problems were revealed by the respondents to the Committee’s emergency preparedness questionnaire. Of the 86 municipalities that responded to the Committee’s questionnaire, only 9.9 percent of respondents said that they were satisfied with the services of OCIPEP. In addition, 62.5 percent of respondents from large communities indicated that they were not satisfied with OCIPEP. Many respondents simply knew too little about the organization to comment. This is the loudest comment of all.

Prime Minister Paul Martin moved OCIPEP out of the Department of National Defence in order to improve inter-departmental and inter-governmental cooperation. In December 2003, the Honourable Anne McLellan, P.C., M.P., was appointed Deputy Prime Minister as well as minister responsible for the new Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness portfolio, into which OCIPEP is being integrated.

On 18 December, Ms. McLellan said that she intended “to make sure we’re functioning in a more integrated way, sharing information and sharing information obviously not only within the Government of Canada and all its agencies and departments but with other levels of government, the provinces and municipalities and cities.”[15]

The Committee is of the view that Prime Minister Martin’s initiative is a step in the right direction. The Committee recommended similar action on page 126 of its October 2003 report Canada’s Coastlines: The Longest Under-Defended Borders in the World.

However, as the Committee will demonstrate in this report, making functional changes to OCIPEP’s mandate and methodology will be even more important than rearranging the agency’s position within the machinery of government.

The Committee is convinced that the time to make these changes is now, with a new government in the process of establishing what all parties hope will be a more alert and responsible approach to the security of Canadians.

There will never be a better window of opportunity to strengthen the frail infrastructure that has left Canadians so vulnerable for so long.

One of Prime Minister Martin’s first changes in cabinet responsibilities was to designate the Minister for Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness as the lead minister for public safety, replacing the Solicitor-General. The Minister has statutory responsibility for national security, policing, and law enforcement, coordinating Canada’s terrorist response, and is charged with ensuring that national responses to crises are effective.

Michel D'Avignon, the Director General for National Security with the Department of the Solicitor General (now a part of the Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness portfolio) told the Committee before the shuffle in Cabinet responsibilities that the Solicitor-General’s role was “to act as a catalyst, either bringing the portfolio or the broader federal community together, to address national security issues that need a horizontal approach.” [16]

Committee members noted that before the Cabinet shuffle it had not been clear whether the Solicitor General’s office or OCIPEP itself was coordinating national emergency preparedness. The Committee was not convinced when Mr. D'Avignon said he was “satisfied” that Ottawa would be able to act quickly, coherently and collectively, and that the Office of the Solicitor General was working to develop “a good symbiotic relationship” with OCIPEP.

It comes as some relief, then, that OCIPEP and the former Department of the Solicitor General have been integrated into one organization. The Committee believes that one organization dedicated to tackling all national emergencies will serve Canadians more efficiently and effectively than parallel structures dedicated to different scenarios.

Too much of the testimony that the Committee received strongly suggested that Canadians generally have not been getting the protection that they deserve from OCIPEP, and that Canadian taxpayers are not getting value for money.

Getting funds into the hands of the heavy lifters – our first responders in police, fire, ambulance, hospital and other front line emergency units – will require smooth linkages between all levels of government. In short, it will require cooperation, supposedly a very Canadian concept. The Committee would like to see evidence that OCIPEP is going to every length possible – through funding, diplomacy, the fostering of public awareness and all other means available to it – to ensure first responders have the resources and support they need to do their jobs. OCIPEP needs to start listening to those first responders to determine what their needs are, and then it needs to do everything in its power to see that those needs are met.

The new Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness portfolio includes a critical incident response component that requires that close contacts be maintained with provincial police organizations. It administers The Security Offences Act (1984), for example, which calls for liaison between the RCMP and all other police forces in Canada. This facilitates consultations on counter-terrorist efforts.

The Provincial Police Services Agreement (PPSA) (1992) is a bilateral agreement that enables the RCMP to provide policing services to all territories and provinces – except for Ontario and Quebec. Article 8.4a of the PPSA states that, during a provincial emergency, the Commissioner of the RCMP, in consultation with the Provincial Minister and the approval of the Solicitor General (now the Minister for Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness), can draw up to 10 per cent of the RCMP Contract Policing members for redeployment towards identified emergencies. Similarly, Article 8.5a states that the Commissioner of the RCMP, in consultation with the Provincial Minister and the approval of the Minister, can utilize up to 10 per cent of the RCMP Contract Policing members in a province in order to respond to a federal emergency that is perceived to exist anywhere in Canada.[17]

The Committee believes that the Provincial Servicing Agreement is a very useful emergency response mechanism. However, it would be improved if all provinces had equivalent agreements.

Many Canadians assume that the Canadian Forces will always be made available if the resources of local police, fire and other emergency response agencies prove to be inadequate in a crisis.

Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff Vice-Admiral Greg Maddison’s testimony should qualify that assumption. Maddison told the Committee that domestic operations are not a primary responsibility of the armed forces, nor are the armed forces adequately equipped or trained to fill that role. While it was true that military assets could be called upon in response to terrorist attacks or in other national emergencies, the Department of National Defence (DND) is not responsible for terrorist attacks on domestic soil. The Canadian Forces, he said, “are not the first responders.”[18]

According to Maddison, if a major disaster were to occur, OCIPEP would coordinate the federal response to provincial authorities using in-house resources. The Canadian Forces could be called if these resources proved to be insufficient, but the military would not be the ‘lead.’ The Committee heard that there are a variety of circumstances under which a request for military assistance can be made. These range from the provision of equipment and personnel in support of local emergencies to armed assistance as aid of the civil power. Operational commanders can respond to some of these requests, although if significant resources are needed the request must go to the national level. Aid of the civil power is different because only provincial solicitors general can request it, and the Canadian Forces Chief of the Defence Staff would be legally obligated to respond. Aid of the civil power requests are also different because this is the only situation in which DND controls the response.

Vice Admiral Maddison commented accurately on the letter of the law as it pertains to the role of the Canadian Forces in dealing with domestic emergencies. However, the Committee is not convinced that the Forces are doing enough to prepare for the spirit of the law.

The DART team can react rapidly to domestic or international man-made emergencies or natural disasters. However, it is difficult to predict how long it would take the DART to deploy to anywhere in Canada or the world. The response time varies depending on the availability of transport aircraft, the number of hours it takes for personnel to concentrate at 8 Wing Trenton, the DART airhead, and other factors. International deployments require country studies to ensure that DART is not sent into an inhospitable environment.

The DART can assist non-governmental organizations and local and United Nations agencies for up to 40 days. It has been designed to provide rapid assistance to help to stabilize an emergency, prevent the onset of secondary effects, and allow time for relief bodies to plan the long-term recovery.

But although the DART was created to provide disaster relief overseas, its only deployments have been to eastern Zaire in 1996, Honduras in late November 1998, and Turkey in August 1999. Given the small number of overseas deployments, the Committee believes that the DART should have a domestic capability as well as a foreign capability.

The Committee agrees that the DART can deploy overseas, but it believes that if they are primarily for foreign operations then Canada is clearly under-utilizing this resource. The government should be prepared to use the DART in Canada.

The Committee has reservations about the fact that the DART’s equipment and personnel are not concentrated in one location. Currently, the DART equipment is warehoused at Trenton, its command element is at Kingston, and team members come from units across Canada. The Committee is also concerned about the aging Canadian Forces Hercules fleet. Given the fleet’s history of mechanical problems, the Committee it is of the view that it cannot be relied upon to transport the team at a moment’s notice.

For a health crisis, such as a bioterrorist attack, Health Canada is designated to take the lead, supported by OCIPEP. In 2000 Health Canada established a Centre for Emergency Preparedness and Response, headed by Dr. Ron St. John, to develop an integrated federal / provincial approach to health emergencies. Health Canada is also the lead agency responsible for the Federal Nuclear Emergency Plan. Dr. St. John said that Health Canada had recently tested this plan in an exercise.[19] The Committee was not apprised of the results.

In his appearance in February 2003, Dr. St. John spoke of the federal government’s caches of emergency supplies that were ‘strategically located’ across Canada. He said that Health Canada is “confident that our national emergency stockpile system can deliver our commitment…[We] have invested heavily in repositioning those warehouses strategically.”

He added that Health Canada has “organized those along the lines of an acronym we call SLOT (Supplies, Laboratory, Organization and Training). Under supplies, we added an antibiotic, chemical antidote, supplies and equipment to our national emergency stockpile system. This is a $330 million emergency supply of medical supplies – an entire system spread out across the country, consisting of seven warehouses, including a principal warehouse in Ottawa[20] and 1, 600 caches of emergency medical supplies, managed jointly by provinces and territories.”[21]

Upon hearing Dr. St. John’s testimony, the Committee was impressed and felt that Health Canada as a government department was getting out ahead of a problem. However, as the Committee looked deeper, we realized that all that glitters is not gold. On our visits around Canada, we checked on Dr. St. John’s testimony and found cause for concern.

Such caches may prove to be a wise investment – if first responders can get to them. But many first responders are clearly unaware that the caches even exist.

For example, Glen Tait, formerly the Fire Chief for Saint John, New Brunswick, and David Blackmore, the Manager of the Emergency Operations Centre in St. John’s, Newfoundland, told the Committee that they knew that the caches existed, but not what was in them. Similarly, Bruce Burrell, the Assistant Deputy Chief Director of the Halifax Regional Municipality Fire Service, said he had arranged to view the assets, but only because he had anticipated that the Committee might ask about them.[22] Inspector Dave Rossell of the Windsor Police Services told us that the police had just taken over what proved to be an outdated and unhelpful emergency supply cache that was left at the Windsor airport by the federal government.[23]

In an effort to assess the situation across Canada, the Committee distributed a Community Emergency Preparedness questionnaire to emergency management officials and first responders in 100 Canadian cities (see Chapter 6). Of the 86 that replied, 67%, said that they had no knowledge of the Health Canada caches.[24]

Further, only 13 percent of respondents said that their municipality had an adequate store of emergency supplies, and 27.3 percent said their municipalities had not identified or warehoused the supplies needed for potential emergencies.

Dr. St. John also referred to the Health Emergency Response Teams (HERT). The Office of Public Security, which is a specialized branch of the Centre for Emergency Preparedness and Response, is establishing the HERT teams. They are made up of clinical practitioners who would deploy to disaster sites. The HERT concept has raised questions, he said, because the practice of medicine is provincially regulated. Dr. St. John told the Committee that the federal government is examining its options for surmounting this hurdle.

When the Committee revisited this issue a year later, it found that Health Canada had not finished discussing the HERT concept with its provincial and territorial partners. No teams had been created. As of late January 2004, HERT was still being refined by the federal / provincial / territorial Network on Emergency Preparedness and Response. According to Health Canada, attention was being placed, among other things, on the development of the HERT infrastructure and on the creation and types of teams.[25] Health Canada’s goal is to have one or two teams set up by the end of 2004.

Although the Committee is pleased that this work is progressing, it is of the view that Health Canada should have been seized with a greater sense of urgency regarding the establishment of the HERTs. It is not acceptable for Canada to have to wait three years after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks for this concept to be put in place.

In its December 2001 budget, the federal government allocated new funds for first responder training in relation to chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) incidents. A letter from the Honourable John McCallum, P.C., M.P., then the Minister of National Defence and Minister Responsible for Emergency Preparedness, set out the new allocations: $10 million was to be provided over two years for equipment purchases; $59 million over six years for the development and delivery of a national first responder training program; and $20 million over six years to build Heavy Urban Search and Rescue (HUSAR) teams. He added that OCIPEP is consulting with jurisdictions on the development of a National Critical Infrastructure Assurance Program.[26]

The Committee supports these initiatives. However, it believes that funding for CBRN equipment purchases should be brought up to the level of funding allocated for CBRN training.

The Joint Emergency Preparedness Program (JEPP), administered by OCIPEP, is the federal government’s primary funding mechanism for emergency preparedness. Mr. McCallum said that this program contributes approximately $ 4.7 million annually to support provincial or municipal proposals.[27] The Committee did hear testimony that some municipalities are making use of JEPP. Deryl Kloster, the General Manager of Edmonton’s Emergency Response Department, told the Committee during its visit to Edmonton that his municipality was “asking for and receiving federal dollars to purchase and deploy new types of equipment.”[28] During the Committee’s visit to Regina, Police Chief Cal Johnston acknowledged having received $204,000 from the JEPP. He said the money went toward the purchase by the police and fire departments of first responder personal protective suits, chemical and radiation monitoring units, and decontamination equipment. However, the force was still awaiting training from OCIPEP on the use of this equipment.[29]

Responses to the Committee’s questionnaire were mixed as to the value of JEPP. Larger cities in particular were not enthused. Typical complaints:

During his July 2001 Committee appearance, Michel D'Avignon outlined the National Counter-Terrorism Plan and the Operational Readiness Program (ORP), describing the two as complementary. He said the Plan facilitates the coordination of the resources and responsibilities of the three orders of government. Under the Program, exercises are conducted to make governments and first responders more aware of the Plan. The Program also enhances national preparedness for acts of chemical and biological terrorism.[30]

Mike Theilmann, the Acting Director of the Counter-Terrorism Division in the Department of the Solicitor General (his immediate superior was Mr. D'Avignon) when he testified before the Committee in July 2001, also discussed the federal government’s coordinating mechanisms. He said that the ORP exercises sometimes include provincial officials and municipal first responders. According to Theilmann, the ORP is designed “to ensure there is awareness at the local level and that police and incident commanders in particular know what arrangements are in place in their local jurisdiction…we want to ensure they know what their responsibilities are in a terrorist incident and how they work with the RCMP.”[31] It seems to the Committee that the intention is to make these officials aware that they are part of a national response structure.

Health Canada has developed a network that gathers information on emergencies and disasters. Its Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN) provides real-time monitoring worldwide of all infectious disease outbreaks. According to Dr. St. John, GPHIN is “a uniquely Canadian system developed over the last four years in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO). This system provides WHO with 45 per cent of all the information they have about what is going on in the world.”[32]

Health Canada also monitors public health in Canada. It has created the Network for Health Surveillance that involves all orders of government in the building of relationships, standards and Internet tools so that decision makers can access the information they need. One of the Networks projects is called Canadian Integrated Public Health Surveillance. This is a partnership of information technology and public health personnel to develop computerized tools that would support the systematic collection and collation of health surveillance data.

Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) work together on the surveillance of infectious diseases. Health Canada works with the provinces and educates Canadian travellers on the risk of Avian Influenza (the “Bird Flu”), West Nile Virus and other infectious diseases. The CFIA takes the lead in monitoring Canadian imports of poultry and poultry products for Avian Influenza (the “Bird Flu”), and Canadian mosquitoes, horses and birds for the West Nile Virus.[33]

The CFIA has established the Food and Agriculture Emergency Response System in cooperation with the provincial departments of agriculture, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and agri-food stakeholders. This system was designed to mitigate the effects of an emergency on the sector, and to ensure the continuity and safety of the Canadian agri-food system.[34] In addition, the CFIA is represented on the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency, an industry-led non-profit organization dedicated to tracking animals and stopping any future outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy – also known as BSE, or mad cow disease.

These programs, networks, and systems sound impressive. And yet, not once in the Committee’s travels or in the responses to the open-ended questions about emergency preparedness in the Committee’s questionnaire did a municipal official choose to highlight or comment on any of them. This silence speaks volumes, and it leaves the Committee wondering just how effective they really are[35].

It is not clear to the Committee that OCIPEP’s efforts have been well coordinated or effective. According to Mr. Harlick, OCIPEP has begun to pull together lessons learned from past disasters in Canada that could be available as an online research and awareness tool. However, as this exchange of testimony between Senators Banks and Kenny, and Mr. Harlick highlights, the Committee is dubious about the logic and effectiveness of OCIPEP’s efforts.

Senator Banks:
Do you keep a compendium of some kind of lessons that were learned in those [emergency] situations? … Which can now be codified and made known to everybody? Is that information kept in an easily accessible place somewhere?

Mr. Harlick:
We are doing it in our own exercise. We are coming to the final draft of a lessons-learned report for ourselves, based on all of the major events of 2003, starting from May — going through the hurricanes, the power outage, SARS, those kinds of things. We have that, and we will be finalizing that report, setting up an action plan, and then moving to implement and improve practices that have been identified as part of that exercise.

Senator Banks:
I do not want to oversimplify, but if I were in Kitchener-Waterloo, could I have access to that list and have somebody from Halifax tell me about the mistakes that were made, or what was not done, or what could have been done better, and what they would do the second time around? Is there that sort of codification?

Mr. Harlick:
For our own organization, yes, because it is our own lessons-learned report, and that is what it is designed to do.

Senator Banks:
Do other first responders have access to it?

Mr. Harlick:
It is designed for our own purposes, that is, how OCIPEP can do its own job better next time around based on lessons learned.

Senator Banks:
Yes, but you are in an office. I am talking about the guys on the ground.

Mr. Harlick:
I imagine they would also be doing the same kind of exercise. The HRM, the Halifax Regional Municipality, one would expect, would operate in the same mode, and their emergency coordinator would prepare a list or a report for the city.

Senator Banks:
Do others have access to yours?

Mr. Harlick:
Yes, it is a standard document. How useful it would be to them, based on our situation, I do not know, but it is something that we have. We will be putting this into play interdepartmentally, because we will want to have some interdepartmental discussions among the emergency management community and the federal government as to some of these lessons learned and about how they will try to share other peoples' lessons-learned experiences with us. We are all mutually interdependent in this exercise.

As well, some of the items that come up are interdepartmental. You cannot solve the problem or implement the lessons learned unless you can go and talk to somebody else. Two or three people may work together. That is where we would use this interdepartmental forum. It is a long-standing forum, called an interdepartmental coordination committee, and it has 30-odd members from the major departments and agencies in town. This is one of the functions we can fulfil in dealing with certain issues at a common table. In the aftermath of the series of recent events, some of these points have already come up at the table.

The Chairman:
Has someone from OCIPEP geared up a meeting with people in Halifax to find out what they learned from the recent hurricane? Do you have an information spot where other people who want to prepare for hurricanes can go and find out those lessons, rather than them having to call Halifax?

Mr. Harlick:
We have not yet organized that kind of event. One might fairly say that Halifax is still coping with the aftermath.

The Chairman:
How about the ice storm?

Mr. Harlick:
I believe there was a lessons-learned item on that in 1998.

The Chairman:
If another ice storm hits, is there a file in your office to which you can refer and determine what you should look out for?

Mr. O'Bright:
That kind of information is pretty scattered. It predated the office. We have become very aggressive in developing lessons learned since September 11. There is some scattered documentation about the ice storm, but I certainly do not have anything on the actual development of hard lessons learned from that event. However, we have been doing that for events from September 11 on.

The Chairman:
Do you have the book on SARS? We know that SARS will recur in Canada in a couple of months. Are you set so that, when it hits the next city, those who live there can come to you and you will be able to tell them about the lessons learned in Toronto?

Mr. Harlick:
We were incorporating SARS lessons in our own lessons-learned exercise, which we are now completing now. We would also collectively have the benefit, in the Government of Canada, of a lessons-learned exercise from Health Canada. Health Canada was the lead federal department for SARS. We acted in support of them. We are incorporating the lessons we derived from that into our lessons-learned exercise, and they will be doing the same thing. That means the collectivity will be stronger and better off from that lessons-learned exercise.

The Chairman:
Will you have a document or information at a site or a place where people can go so they do not have to relearn the Toronto lessons?

Mr. Harlick:
We can certainly ask Health Canada about whether they have, in their lessons-learned exercise, information that can be put on a Web site, for example. I do not know whether that is available.

The Chairman:
Do you know if they will be consulting with the Province of Ontario … about their experiences and what they would have done differently, what they were missing, … If so, who is asking?

Mr. Harlick:
People from Health Canada would be asking those kinds of questions.

Emergencies are local. The governments that design and control anti-emergency strategies, however, are federal, provincial and territorial. Canada’s constitution presents a formidable challenge to the development of a swift and comprehensive approach to dealing with national emergencies.

The Committee believes that the best way to serve the citizen is by listening to first responders’ needs and wants to avoid suggestions that there is a hierarchy of greater and lesser governments.

Sections 91 and 92 of the Constitution Act (1867) define the federal and provincial / territorial jurisdictional relationship. According to the Act, the federal government has no specific control over the municipalities because the latter fall under the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces.

However, according to the National Advisory Committee on SARS and Public Health (the Naylor Committee), there is “an essential tension in the Canadian federal / provincial / territorial fabric.” The problem is that “much administrative responsibility rests with the provincial / territorial level, while revenue generation and therefore spending capacity is concentrated at the federal level.”[36]

The challenge is to coordinate three orders of government – the federal order that funds (and plans); the provincial / territorial order that administers (and plans); and the municipal order that actually responds. A lot of things have to go right if responders across the country are to be properly outfitted and trained to respond effectively to any number of potential disasters. A short list of “musts”:

· All orders of government must be seized with the urgency of developing optimal disaster-response systems;

· Funding must be allowed to flow through to the local level where the resources and training are needed;

· Federal and provincial / territorial governments must cooperate in developing nation-wide contingency plans; and

· Federal and provincial / territorial governments must listen to first responders so that the resources and training provided are truly appropriate to their needs.

Power struggles, jealousies and differences of opinion inevitably arise when three different jurisdictions of government have important roles to play in solving a problem. As a result, developing a truly national approach to disaster response and assuring that resources and training are sufficient and properly distributed is a formidable task. That should not get in the way of defining it as an essential task.

The Committee believes that a way must be found to ensure that the jurisdictional relationship does not get in the way of serving citizens. This is not a new recommendation, but its logic is irresistible in light of the SARS crisis and the similar appeals made by other committees.

The Naylor Committee’s report, for example, endorses “a depoliticizing strategy in which new federal funding flows through [a] new agency to Provincial / Territorial and municipal jurisdictions, targeting programs and activities according to agreements among public health professionals.” The Naylor Committee called for funding arrangements and processes that would facilitate federal and provincial / territorial collaboration. “The goal of these transfers,” it said, “is to create a seamless multi-tiered public health system, knitted together by inter-governmental agreements and harmonized legislation or regulation.”[37]

Our Committee is convinced that Canadians will never be properly served until the Naylor Committee’s recommendations are implemented.

The Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology, chaired by Senator Michael Kirby, has also argued that emergency response procedures need to be better integrated. In a recent report, it noted that there are “considerable resources available at the federal, provincial / territorial and local levels.” The problem is “the lack of adequate coordination and the absence of a sharp focus in the face of an emergency…and it is clear that greater collaboration must be part of the solution.”[39]

In addition, the Kirby Committee calls for the establishment of a national public health entity, the ‘Health Protection and Promotion Agency.’ This agency would help Canada to solve “the current piecemeal approach to health protection and promotion” and instead develop a measured approach free from bureaucracy and political influence.[40]

So far, we aren’t even close. When health crises and other emergencies arise, first responders too often face needless obstacles largely the result of jurisdictional bun fights. Dr. Sheela Basrur, Toronto’s Medical Officer of Health during the SARS crisis, shakes her head at the lack of teamwork evident in Canada’s approach to emergencies. She says that currently emergency preparedness is regarded in “the typical way, which is federal / provincial and [with] everything [else] subsidiary to the province, their jurisdiction to do or not do, to be active or neglect as they see fit.”[41]

The Committee would always prefer to be in the disaster avoidance business, but when disaster cannot be avoided, the Committee believes the best way to succeed at disaster mitigation is through a unified common effort. In the view of the Committee, the federal government can foster and focus collective efforts by demonstrating leadership, maintaining a cooperative attitude, showing understanding of the needs of other orders of government, the foregoing all leveraged through the power of the federal purse.

The federal government must do so, as a matter of priority, because Canadians have every right to expect a unified common effort from the governments elected to serve them, particularly in times of crisis.

One cannot . . . one should not . . . one must not . . . ignore the Canadian constitution. The provinces and territories exist, as they were meant to exist, and they have primary responsibilities in areas such as health and municipal affairs. It is easy to say that it would be a piece of cake to develop a national system for emergency responses if the federal government were able to deal directly with municipal governments. But there are constitutional impediments that can only be overcome through cooperation.

It is imperative that federal, provincial and territorial governments act in common cause, and with common urgency in devising strategies and tactics, and allocating resources and training, to ensure optimal responses to major emergencies. It is also imperative that those orders of government seek advice from first responders as to what types of planning, communications, resources and training will work best.

There is no alternative to cooperation under the Canadian constitution in areas of shared jurisdiction. But the Committee has found little evidence that the three orders of government are coming together to tackle this critical issue. Stuttering, uncertain governmental responses to SARS, the power blackout and other recent crises may have alarmed more alert members of the public, but it does not seem to have galvanized Canadian governments sufficiently to goad them into action. First responders have a job to do, but they are not being provided adequate resources or direction by governments who bear the responsibility to provide this support.

OCIPEP, for example, is not directly involved in provincial and territorial preparedness efforts because these activities fall outside federal jurisdiction. OCIPEP can only encourage. In the words of James Harlick, the assistant deputy minister for OCIPEP, “where we can, we help them [the provinces] to be well prepared,” and to establish “a degree of national preparedness” for disasters.[42]

OCIPEP has encountered provincial opposition when it has attempted to lead in the development of a national training strategy. Janet Bax, OCIPEP’s Director-General for Programs, summarized the typical provincial response: “Don’t tell us what to do with our training money; we will do it.” She says that OCIPEP “is fighting that. We are saying we want to train against national standards. That is what you have asked us to do and that is what we will do. We are trying to pull [together] teams that are not just multi-disciplinary but are from various regions . . That is what we are working towards. It takes time to build that cohesion.”[43]

The pressure is on municipalities to develop the capacity to respond. Dr. St. John, of Health Canada, made this clear while appearing before the Committee. He commented that it “is not particularly exciting, revealing or unusual to say that a CBRN event or other disaster is local, first and foremost. However, that premise must be established because it is important for municipalities to assume some responsibility for their response capacity.”[44]

The Committee does not object to this principle. But, if the municipalities are to assume responsibility for preparedness, they must be properly funded. The provinces – as is their prerogative – sometimes get in the way. Rather than using their own funds, some provinces have been using funds from OCIPEP’s JEPP program to hire personnel for their provincial emergency management organizations.

This “is a sad but true fact,” said Ms. Bax. “This is what the money has been used for in some provinces and so the funds have not always reached the municipalities.”[45]

The Committee notes that to serve citizens well, funding must reach first responders.

OCIPEP is well aware of the problem, but it has limited leverage with the provinces. So it has been trying to buy favour with them. Ms. Bax told the Committee that OCIPEP has “been generous in allowing that to happen, to build up the provincial capacity before moving into the municipalities.”[46] The Committee found this to be remarkable.

Although OCIPEP’s approach may be reasonable given the jurisdictional barrier, there is only so much federal funding allotted for improving the capacity of municipalities to respond, and those municipalities are sometimes getting elbowed out of the way by their provincial governments.

During his testimony, Chief Tait, then a member of the Saint John Fire Department, provided an example of what can go wrong. He said that JEPP funding often doesn’t get through because the small amount of money received by New Brunswick is based on provincial recommendations. “Sometimes,” he noted, “the provinces have their own projects. It could be a communications system. They would use the money for that. Nothing would be left for the municipality, because it would not be a lot of money to start with.”[47]

Not everyone at the federal level thinks there is a problem with funding. Mr. Theilmann, speaking for the Department of the Solicitor General (now the Ministry of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness), maintained that OCIPEP is attentive to first responders needs: “It is not as if the federal government is standing on the sideline waiting to be sent into the game . . We are not sitting idly by, we are monitoring. If they [first responders] need assistance, they can get it quickly.”[48]

The Chair responded that this was not the message the Committee had been receiving: “We are seeing a disconnect . . . We do not hear the same message from first providers.”

Mr. Theilmann conceded that “training is not being delivered at the local level yet, aside from what we have been doing over the last four years through the Operational Readiness Program…”[49]

Mr. Theilmann was referring to the CBRN first responder training for which funds were allocated in the December 2001 budget. The Committee was taken aback when it heard, in June 2002, that this initiative was taking so long to implement.

Ms. Bax, OCIPEP’s Director-General for Programs, reminded the Committee that in the December, 2001 six years of funding had been provided for CBRN training. “Certainly,” she said, “I can tell you that, at the end of the six-year period for which we have this discrete funding for CBRN, we will absolutely have standards.”[50]

Perhaps. However, the Committee heard several complaints from first responders over the small amount of information and CBRN training they had received from OCIPEP as of January 2003.

This is a problem for both large and small cities. Officials representing Edmonton (which has a metropolitan population of 938, 000), for example, say they have not been informed about the CBRN training initiatives. Fire Chief Randy Wolsey noted that OCIPEP “asked us if we would send some first responders, people on the floor, that could actually go look at the training program that was being developed… They spent time reviewing the training programs and made suggestions and recommendations on how they could change it to make that training program more effective. It has disappeared into the woodwork, however. We do not know where that training program went nor do we know when it is ever going to surface again, and we are concerned about that.”[51]

As noted earlier, the Canadian military does not see itself as a first responder in emergencies. However, the public – perhaps thinking of former Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman’s summoning of the army to deal with a snowstorm in January 1999 – has a different impression.

Take the Vancouver area. Although the reserve land forces stationed in the area do not officially have a first response role, municipal officials reportedly believe that they will provide emergency assistance. Lieutenant-Colonel Blair McGregor, Commander of the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada, told the Committee during its visit to Vancouver that “People in the local area – be they informed or not – look to these establishments as a source of immediate disaster relief. Currently we have contingency plans, but little else. We do not train for that and are not funded for it…There is a bit of a disconnect between what the public expects and what we can provide. This is a significant problem. Should there be a major calamity in this area, we would be looked upon as not being up to the task.” [52]

Lieutenant-Colonel Brian Travis, the Deputy Chief of Staff for the 39 Canadian Brigade Group, echoed this in saying “I think… expectations do exceed what we are capable of doing. One of their top priorities is domestic operations. They expect us to be there in case of emergency.”[53]

The Committee believes that the principal role of the reserves is to serve the community. It is convinced that the militia, in particular, has a significant role to play in the event of an emergency.

Three years after Prime Minister Chrétien announced that he was creating the Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness (OCIPEP) to upgrade “Canada’s critical infrastructure to protect us from the risks of failure or disruption,” the new organization has yet to come close to fulfilling its mandate. It has made progress in some areas, but not enough in all the important areas that fall within its mandate.

As noted above, OCIPEP has failed to move quickly to develop a National Disaster Mitigation Strategy (NDMS). In July 2001, Alan Bartley, OCIPEP’s Director General for Policy Planning and Readiness, said that a NDMS was clearly needed, but OCIPEP and other stakeholders were still discussing it.[55]

The Committee is surprised to note that, as of January 2004, those discussions continue and there exists no firm date for the completion of the National Disaster Mitigation Strategy.

There are two kinds of communication that need to be addressed. The first is internal, between first responders, between government officials and between orders of government. The second is between governments and the public.

As Dave Quick, Regina’s Emergency Planning Coordinator, said testifying before the Committee, “Emergency preparedness is communications…emergency response is the training and the equipment and all those types of things. We have to have systems in place so that we know how to communicate at all levels.”[56] He said that exercises had clearly demonstrated that effective communications – both among all orders of government and with the public – were essential to an effective response.

To be well prepared for national emergencies, Canada needs robust mechanisms for internal and public communications. Unfortunately, the Committee found that neither is ready.

No matter how good a strategy OCIPEP has on the books for coordinating a response to a national emergency, without the ability to coordinate that response, it will be ineffective. This Committee believes that communication among officials at all levels of the response—from first responders to federal departments—is critical to coordinating to its success.

Toronto first responders encountered communication problems when a massive power outage blacked out much of Ontario and parts of the United States on 14 August 2003.

In Toronto, Dr. Basrur pointed out, for roughly “30 per cent of 8,000 physicians we have to rely on snail mail or Canada Post or what have you to get information to [them], and that does not make any sense.”[57]

The Committee believes that first responders must be able to communicate with one another quickly and effectively.

The Committee was surprised that OCIPEP did not describe backup systems for communicating with its regional offices.

The Committee believes that the federal government, the provinces and territories should move to link key centres across the country in an emergency communications network that will each allow them to communicate among themselves.

Further, the Committee believes that a redundancy must be built into these linkages to ensure the continuity of communication.

The Committee knows that unlimited redundancies are neither practical nor possible and accepts that the level of redundancy should be commensurate with the relevance of the communication being protected.[58]

Initiatives do exist in a very limited number of jurisdictions to ensure the continuity of timely government-to-public communications.

Mr. Alan Bartley, then Director General, Policy Planning and Readiness at the Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness, for example, made reference to Alberta’s Emergency Public Warning System (EPWS). Developed in response to the tornado that struck Edmonton in 1987 and launched in 1992, the EPWS is maintained by the CKUA-FM Radio Network. It enables provincial and local officials to transmit emergency warnings via radio, television and cable (where available) to the public, the media and first responders.

Mr. Bartley said that OCIPEP does not plan to call for the creation of similar systems in other provinces and territories or for a national version because “the jurisdictional responsibility for those kinds of services resides with the provinces.” As a result, OCIPEP supports this idea “in principle” only.[59]

This is unfortunate. The Emergency Public Warning System is broad-based, easy to use and inexpensive. EPWS currently includes 190 local governments. About 99 per cent of Alberta’s population will be linked to it following an expansion planned for summer 2004. Alberta spent $1.4 million to build and upgrade the EPWS, and it will spend $600,000 annually to operate the system.

The EPWS can be used to broadcast provincial messages, but it also allows local officials to record and air customized warnings. Activating the system can be done in less than three minutes simply by calling a central computer at CKUA-FM using a touch-tone telephone. The message is then relayed to broadcasters, most of whom will override programming and air it immediately.[60]

The Committee does not agree that dissemination of emergency broadcasts should be left to broadcasters’ discretion. The system has the capability to interrupt all local and national channels (such as CNN, CBC, and ESPN), but implementation is left to the discretion of individual broadcasters. The Committee believes that legislation should be put in place to compel broadcasters to interrupt all broadcasts when lives are threatened by a major emergency and a message needs to be sent. A mandatory interruption should be ordered only when lives are at risk, and afterwards the initiating authority must publicly justify their action.

The Committee is not satisfied with OCIPEP’s position regarding EPWS. The Committee believes that the agency should be more aggressive in promoting the introduction of similar systems across Canada. A national version of Alberta’s system would enable all provinces, municipalities, and the federal government to disseminate information quickly and efficiently during emergencies.

Roadblocks need to be overcome. For example, one Saskatchewan respondent mentioned that a well-known cable company would not broadcast warning bands on all of its channels because it apparently has contracts that prevent it from “adding content” to broadcasts.

OCIPEP should establish standards for a national system in the interest of guaranteeing intra- and inter-provincial communications should they be required in the event of an emergency. Then the Cabinet needs to instruct and / or legislate the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to make adherence to these standards a condition of a broadcaster’s license. This would be obligatory and mandated by the CRTC for use in the event of imminent danger to life, limb or property.

The Committee acknowledges that there will be costs involved in establishing a national emergency notification network that is similar to Alberta’s. The cost, however, would certainly not be prohibitive when compared to the dangers of being unable to communicate effectively during emergencies.

The Committee notes that the vast majority of information regarding emergencies is best disseminated by the media in the usual manner through briefings, press conferences and interviews. This national system would not replace those briefings. It would augment them.

Toronto officials who responded to the SARS crisis and the electricity blackout in 2003 agree that an improved public communications system is needed. Dr. Sheela Basrur, then Toronto’s Medical Officer of Health, pointed out during her presentation on the SARS crisis that the best way to get information to the public is through the media.

Communicating quickly with the public is difficult without an Emergency Public Warning System or access to “Reverse 911®”, a computer-driven tool that allows officials to phone every home within a given neighbourhood.[61]

Toronto’s first responders were forced to connect with separate media outlets to disseminate information – a time-consuming process with limited control over the end product. They also encouraged citizens to educate themselves by calling the Access Toronto information line[62] or reading material posted on the Internet.[63]

The Committee further believes that there needs to be other initiatives undertaken to ensure that communications between government and the public are effective. . Surprisingly some relatively old technology may still be of use. During the August 2003 blackout, community after community rediscovered the value of the transistor radio.

The Committee believes OCIPEP needs to educate people on the need to prepare themselves with an information plan that encourages people to buy transistor radios and spare batteries, just as they would buy smoke detectors as part of a home safety plan.

Dr. Martin Rudner observed that the creation of OCIPEP has raised concerns over intelligence coordination. He testified “until now, the coordination responsibility has been vested in the Privy Council Office (PCO) under the Coordinator for Intelligence. However, PCO possesses no mechanisms of its own to ensure coordination, other than moral suasion.”[64]

There are several federal organizations with intelligence responsibilities. OCIPEP and FINTRAC, the financial tracking agency, are two of the newest. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Communications Security Establishment are also active in the area of intelligence. Transport Canada, the Canadian Border Services Agency (formerly Canada Customs and Revenue Agency) and Citizenship and Immigration Canada have developed or expanded their intelligence capabilities.

The Committee is concerned that Canada’s intelligence gathering and analysis capability, along with other aspects of the national emergency readiness system, may become a mish-mash unless it is carefully coordinated. Key provincial emergency officials seem to agree with this point. Neil McKerrell, the Chief of Emergency Management Ontario, said that in “the emergency management business, the last thing you need is a bowl of ‘bureaucratic spaghetti’ to work through.”[65]

The remedy is obvious. The PCO Security and Intelligence Secretariat, which is the main interdepartmental coordinator for the Canadian intelligence community,[66] should be responsible for the coordination of national intelligence gathering. The PCO security and intelligence coordinator, who also serves as deputy minister to the deputy prime minister, should ensure a fused intelligence assessment is provided to the Deputy Prime Minister and officials charged with coordination of emergency management.

A very similar structure was proposed in the Committee’s previous report, Canada’s Coastlines: The Longest Under-Defended Borders in the World (October 2003).[67] This report called for a new architecture at the centre to handle national security issues. It recommended the establishment of a permanent Cabinet committee chaired by the deputy prime minister, the appointment to the PCO of a new Secretary to Cabinet who will serve as this committee’s senior official, and the creation of a PCO secretariat dedicated to national security issues such as emergency preparedness.

The Committee had prepared further recommendations that the PCO ensure that the emergency preparedness mandates of federal departments and agencies be better coordinated. It also planned to recommend that the mandates of these departments and agencies mesh, but not overlap; and that legislation be revised or, if necessary, developed to guarantee the implementation of this coordinated approach.

The Committee is pleased to note that many of these recommendations have been put into effect.

The Committee Members applaud the government’s decision to create the position of National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister in the PCO. The Government stated that this position will “be responsible for intelligence and threat assessment integration and interagency cooperation, and [will] assist the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness in the development and overall implementation of an integrated policy for national security and emergencies…”[68]

If the structure now makes far more sense, much of the work to reform the system still needs to be done. The Committee is convinced that OCIPEP must become more focused. It should assume leadership in the collection and analysis of disaster and emergency-related information. And it should get on with the development of national emergency preparedness standards.

In some areas, OCIPEP has done quite well. OCIPEP is making good progress in working with the provinces on the establishment of Heavy Urban Search and Rescue (HUSAR) teams. James Harlick, Assistant Deputy Minister of OCIPEP, informed the Committee on 20 October 2003 that these multi-agency teams are in place in Vancouver and Calgary, and are in various stages of planning for Toronto, Montreal and Halifax. The Vancouver HUSAR team is internationally certified and can operate outside the country.[69]

However, the Committee was concerned about the lack of transportability for most of the HUSAR teams. Mr. Harlick told the Committee that while the Vancouver HUSAR team was internationally certified, “the challenge it would face…is to get from Vancouver to the international destination.” According to Mr. Harlick, the Calgary and Vancouver teams are “road-deployable” and the other HUSAR teams are somewhat less ready to deploy.[70]

The Committee believes that given the state of Canada’s Hercules fleet, the capacity to move any of Canada’s HUSAR teams to a disaster area in a timely fashion is in question. In the event of a major emergency, for example a major earthquake that necessitated multiple HUSAR teams be moved to one location, this lack of mobility would cost lives.

However, OCIPEP needs to improve how it coordinates information. “We saw voids recently in [the] exchange of information during the Ontario blackout,” said Michael Lester, the Executive Director of Nova Scotia’s Emergency Measures Organization. “We could not get any information out of Ottawa during 9/11 . . . We were fortunate that the Acting American Consul General offered to sit in the emergency operations centre and advise us on what was going on from Washington. It was effective but embarrassing.”[71]

OCIPEP has assessed its response to the terrorist attacks. OCIPEP determined, among other things, that some of its staff members were operationally inexperienced, that its headquarters suffered from inadequate communications capacity, and that “Central agency control of the information flow prevented OCIPEP from serving its public-private stakeholders. For example, OCIPEP did not provide operational information...to the provinces / territories and critical infrastructure owners on September 11-12.”[72]

The Committee has not heard any evidence that these problems have been overcome. And, so far, OCIPEP’s record as an information coordinator during crises is not good.

The Committee is of the view that auditing of preparedness plans, gathering and disseminating information on what has worked and what has failed during crises and monitoring the development of best practices should be core OCIPEP functions.

However, Mr. Harlick told us that OCIPEP is not formally responsible for auditing federal government departments and agencies in order to verify the adequacy of their emergency-related plans and initiatives, nor does it have more than a marginal role in the development of best practices across governments.[73]

Further, while OCIPEP has self-critiqued its own performance, Harlick testified that they had little idea or mandate to determine whether other departments were learning from past experience and lessons learned documents geared towards first responders.[74]

Mr. Harlick noted that there are many departments and agencies in the federal government, and he did not know if every one reviews their activities during emergencies or exercises in order to learn lessons. “I know that some [departments and agencies] are,” he said, “but I do not know that all are . . . That is a role that we would be interested in looking at. As you have indicated, it would take a certain amount of resources to do it.”[75]

The Committee believes it needs to address Harlick’s rationale—essentially that emergency preparedness is a departmental responsibility—head on.

The Committee accepts that planning for emergencies is a Deputy Minister’s responsibility, but does not accept that it is only a Deputy Minister’s responsibility.

Deputy Ministers have many important responsibilities and the Committee fears that without an outside audit, the unacceptable result may be that emergency preparedness falls through the cracks.

The Committee believes it should be OCIPEP’s function to conduct those audits.

At the present time, a number of important preparedness tasks are not being addressed. For the citizen to be properly protected, we need a better, transparent, picture of the community preparedness situation.

In cooperation with municipalities and provinces, OCIPEP should create a template for gathering lessons learned and share those lessons with all members of Canada’s emergency preparedness community.

It should build an inventory of the threats facing Canada’s municipalities and of the assets they have to meet those threats. An ongoing analysis should be done to determine where the deficiencies lie, and how best to address them.

In a written submission, Toronto Police Service Chief Julian Fantino argued that there is a basic flaw in Canada’s approach to emergency preparedness: the fact that OCIPEP is designed to respond to crises only after municipal and provincial resources have been exhausted. Chief Fantino said that while these “assurances are well intended, it is illogical to think that the local emergency services will wrap yellow tape around the city while we wait for outside help to arrive.”[78]

Chief Fantino also told the Committee that federal and provincial aid to first responders is insufficient, and that first responders feel like marginal players on the preparedness stage even though they will be the lead actors during a crisis. Improvements suggested to date by federal and provincial governments “fall seriously short in recognizing the need for local law enforcement to be made an integral part of the overall anti-terrorism problem.”[79]

William Pasel, Hamilton’s Emergency Measures Coordinator, said municipalities should have direct, fast-track access to federal funding. He said that if the province “is a screen and is necessary, that is not for me to judge. [But] I am at the end of the line waiting for something to come down, and I would not ask unless there is a need. That is all. In the interests of speed, why not go to the source? That is all I am saying.”[80]

Deryl Kloster, General Manager of the Edmonton Emergency Response Department, argued that first responders feel caught between what some designate a provincial emergency preparedness issue, and others designate a federal national security issue. Mr. Kloster said this is an “extremely difficult situation for municipalities,” which are expected to do a good job but do not have the financial resources to deliver.[81]

Too many emergency-preparedness decisions are being made in isolation – at every rung of the ladder. First responders are on the margins of federal emergency planning. Meanwhile local emergency plans are developed without consultation with federal officials.”[82]

Julian Fantino, Chief of the Toronto Police Service, said that local police agencies want to co-operate, but the federal and provincial governments “have not focused their attention to adequately address local vulnerabilities and needs. That is quite regrettable.” Although local officials “cannot respond adequately without the help of the two senior levels of government,” he noted, “We have been basically left on our own.” Chief Fantino called for “a partnership” relationship.”[83]

The Committee was overwhelmed with evidence that this lack of cooperation and cohesion is a nationwide problem, certainly not unique to Ontario or Toronto. Federal and provincial governments have a responsibility to fix problems – and fix them quickly – when the lives of many Canadians are clearly at stake.

In Regina, Police Chief Cal Johnston testified that the city could cope with most natural disasters, but only the “bare essentials” of a chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) attack. Local officials did not know if a CBRN attack was likely or remote, and if and how they might prepare for one. Better links with federal agencies like OCIPEP were needed in order to acquire information and focus funding on priority areas. “We are currently constrained,” Chief Johnston said, “because communication must come through the province…The municipalities are the first level of government to respond…yet we are not able to connect directly with federal-funding and information-providing agencies.”[84]

In Edmonton, Dave Hill, Chair of the Capital Region Emergency Preparedness Partnership, argued that the federal or provincial governments have not been sufficiently supportive of regional / municipal preparedness efforts. These efforts are largely designed by people on the front line, most of whom have had experiences with crises. Said Mr. Hill: “At neither level of government is there a process in place to support regional preparedness, even though several studies identify that this is a key component to emergency preparedness.”[85]

Representatives of the Capital Region Emergency Preparedness Partnership outlined the unsatisfactory response it got after designing a disaster-relief initiative that would require an immediate allocation of $725,000 and expenditures of $45 million over 15 years. OCIPEP told the regional body that it generally limits its funding assistance to requests submitted through the provinces and territories. Meanwhile the Alberta government responded by saying that funding the proposal was a federal responsibility.[86]

Frustrated, Mr. Hill wrote to Prime Minister Chrétien explaining that his group’s initiative would need legislative and sustained financial support in order to deal with “the significant challenges created by the increase in security responsibilities [that] have overtaken available resources.”[87] Nothing happened.

The Committee understands that Canada’s constitution assigns provinces exclusive control over the areas within their jurisdiction. But the federal and provincial governments need to get their acts together to respond to this very useful kind of initiative. The regions and municipalities have the best insights as to what they need, and when they come forward with a plan that makes sense within the context of national emergency preparedness, senior levels of government should do what this report is all about: respond.

The Committee notes and supports the commitment of Prime Minister Martin to provide additional funding for municipalities through a dedicated gasoline tax or a similar type of mechanism. While the Committee does not suggest that all or even most of the revenue generated by this tax be allocated for emergency preparedness, it could be a useful mechanism to address some of these concerns.

Several first responders testified that applications under the JEPP – OCIPEP’s funding mechanism – are too cumbersome and the money available too limited.

There were also complaints that larger municipalities are forced to take on emergency response duties for smaller communities whenever emergencies occur. Edmonton Fire Chief Randy Wolsey told the Committee that Edmonton and other major cities in Alberta have had to bear the cost of reacting to crises in small communities that cannot afford to adequately prepare themselves.[88] Chief Wolsey said that higher levels of government should be shouldering some of this responsibility. “We believe,” he said, “that the federal government bears some responsibility here, because some of these issues are federal issues that we are responding to – the terrorism issue, for example.”[89]

Chief Wolsey contended that the federal government’s assistance mechanisms are neither transparent nor user-friendly. He said that Edmonton requires federal help in order to provide training and procure equipment, but cannot find it. “We have had tremendous difficulty finding how to actually access the dollars,” he said. “We are told that the funds are there, but we do not know what road we are supposed to go down or what process we are supposed to follow in order to access them.”[90]

The Committee sympathizes with Chief Wolsey’s concerns. It believes that larger communities have a responsibility to come to the aid of their smaller neighbors and should receive commensurately larger funding to fulfill that role.

The Committee is also supportive of the cost-sharing model for disaster recovery in the Emergency Preparedness Act (which came into effect in 1998). Under the Act, financial assistance for disaster recovery is to be distributed as follows:

Source: Treasury Board. Cited in Standing Senate Committee on National Finance, “Report on the Committee’s Examination of Canada’s Emergency and Disaster Preparedness,” (June 2000).

The Committee is of the view that while this formula works well for disaster assistance funding, there should be a different formula in place for emergency preparedness.

The Committee believes that for preparedness, a model in which all orders of government contribute equally is more appropriate. The three orders of government should contribute one-third of the costs related to preparedness.

That said, the Committee acknowledges that there are some unique federal costs, relating to capital expenditure and coordination like the functioning of OCIPEP, which should be borne by all taxpayers.

In Windsor, Ontario, Fire Chief Dave Fields complained that a responsive national preparedness strategy is required. Federal funds for training and equipment purchases were too slow in arriving.[91]

Retired Saint John Chief Glen Tait testified in Ottawa that it is apparent to municipalities that emergency preparedness is only a secondary issue for senior levels of government. He said his community is well prepared – it has an operations plan, operations centre, and a back-up facility – but funding is a problem. The federal government must “recognize the financial burden that many municipalities experience and commit to providing a higher funding level to a long-term infrastructure program for municipalities, thus lessening the financial burden on municipalities and freeing up municipal funding to support essential protective services.” Ottawa needs to “provide adequate funding directly to municipalities to support first responder programs and initiatives, such as equipment purchase, replacement, training and program development.”[92]

Mr. Blackmore, the Emergency Operations Centre Manager for St. John’s, said his centre was grateful for the funds that had been received from the JEPP. However, he called for tighter links between the federal government and the municipalities. Mr. Blackmore said that an informal understanding that St. John’s would receive provincial and federal support in the event of an emergency was inadequate. This arrangement needed to be formalized. He called for “direct liaison on a formal basis . . . on those issues which may involve federal jurisdiction or national security which present a potential threat to the community.”[93] Terrorism, he said, was a key example.

Rudy Fries, the Emergency Management Coordinator for London and the County of Middlesex, outlined Ontario’s preparedness initiatives as well as his community’s specific challenges. He expected that the passage of Bill 148, the Ontario Emergency Readiness Act (November 2002), and the subsequent introduction by the Province of Ontario of the Framework for Community Emergency Management Programs, would improve local preparedness. However, his community has no chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear-specific equipment, and “contact with the federal government in response-emergency preparedness issues is limited. Funding assistance and training are issues that could be discussed.”[94]

Like all committees, we are constrained by time and finances. We cannot visit every community that we would like to, or bring before us every witness who has something to contribute. In order to be as inclusive as possible, the Committee sent out questionnaires to 100 Canadian municipalities[95]. The questionnaire isn’t perfect, but it did allow for much broader participation than would otherwise have been possible. Given that one of our main complaints is that federal and provincial governments are not listening to people on the front lines, we felt we should do as much listening as possible.

The questionnaires were aimed at first responders because the Committee felt that it was not always hearing the same story from federal officials as it was hearing from first responders at our hearings. It therefore deemed it appropriate to seek out a range of written testimony from the people on the front lines.

Questionnaires were sent to those officials in each municipality responsible for emergency preparedness. Every municipality with a reported population of greater than 20, 000 was contacted. At the time of publication, the Committee had received 86 responses. Responses were divided into four categories, based on the population of each municipality:

This survey was not intended to be scientific. . Rather it was intended to approximate a fact-finding trip or a hearing. . It asked each respondent to answer questions and make comments categorized by five main themes:

· Assets (equipment, training, personnel, and other resources) available to protect against those threats;

· Any actions that the community may have attempted to take to protect itself; and,

In cases where a respondent did not offer a response to a particular question, or if the answer was unclear and not specifically related to the question, the answer was considered “inconclusive” and was recorded as such.

The exercise proved extremely useful. It helped the Committee meet its goal of detecting a number of trends and anomalies related to the emergency preparedness of Canadian municipalities.

Several key trends emerged from the answers to the questionnaire, many of which are not surprising:

· While it is perceived that the Joint Emergency Preparedness Program (JEPP) is helpful, many respondents saw room for improvement.

· Most respondents either were unaware of, or displeased with, the Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness (OCIPEP).

· Few respondents were aware of Health Canada's emergency caches or their contents, and those that did know about them were often unaware how to access them.

· Although nuclear safety is the responsibility of the federal government’s Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, the three respondents who mentioned nearby nuclear plants (Clarington, Fredericton, Oshawa) made no mention of any response plans for potential emergencies related to those plants.

· Some respondents provided limited information in their responses, or seemed to demonstrate (and sometimes claimed) a lack of expertise or preparedness (such as the respondents from Port de Sorel, Penticton, Milton, and Clarington).

· Only a few respondents voiced concern about terrorist attacks (the Orillia respondent observed that the city could be a target because the headquarters of the Ontario Police Service is located there) and two respondents from larger cities (Ottawa and Toronto) felt that they faced a higher than normal risk of being targeted by terrorists.

i. Who Does the Job?

The most clearly observable trend in the survey results is that larger municipalities are, in general, more prepared to deal with emergencies than smaller ones.

All of the eight large municipalities for which we received responses to our questionnaire employ an official whose duties are to deal solely with emergency coordination or direction. And while this was also the case in 68.2% of the medium size municipalities and 65.2% of the small municipalities for which a response was received to this question, only 40.6% of respondents from very small municipalities have an official whose principal job it is to coordinate or direct emergency preparedness efforts in their area.[96]

In some smaller municipalities, an official jointly carries the titles of Fire Chief and that of Emergency Coordinator/Director (very small: 34.4%; small: 26.1%; medium: 22.7%).[97]

These respondents are fire chiefs who have the added duties of emergency coordination (although some do have training and experience for this position as well). In a few cases, the respondents identified themselves only as Fire Chief, and in one case (Milton, ON) the respondent was a municipal official who did not indicate possessing any experience in the field of emergency planning and coordination.

The questionnaire also asked respondents to indicate whether or not a series of examples would be classified as a major emergency in their city. Responses are reported in the table below.[98]

What % of Respondents Perceive is a Major Emergency by Categorized Community Size[99]

Emergency	Very Small	Small	Medium	Large	Overall
Chemical Spill from Burst Tanker	78.6%	70.6%	65.0%	85.7%	73.6%
Contamination Causing 25 illnesses per day for 7 days	75.0%	64.7%	45.0%	57.1%	62.5%
Contamination Causing 100 illnesses per day for 7 days	78.6%	76.5%	60.0%	57.1%	70.8%
Flood causing the evacuation of 100 people	67.9%	58.8%	50.0%	71.4%	61.1%
Flood causing the evacuation of 1,000 people	78.6%	82.4%	70.0%	85.7%	77.8%
Flood causing the evacuation of 10,000 people	78.6%	88.2%	80.0%	85.7%	81.9%
Large Fire or and/or Earthquake	71.4%	70.6%	80.0%	71.4%	73.6%

Respondents were further asked to indicate whether their cities were particularly vulnerable to potential emergency situations as a result of particular aspects of their environment related to the following categories: major industrial facilities (factories and pipelines), transport (important road and rail lines), airport, water port (river, lake, ocean harbour), and international border.

A majority of respondents indicated that they had industrial (67.4%), airport (67.4%), and transport (60.5%) vulnerabilities. 37.2% of respondents indicated vulnerabilities related to a water port in their vicinity and 11.6% of respondents noted vulnerabilities linked to their proximity to an international border.[100]

Not surprisingly, most of the respondents from large cities indicated vulnerabilities under each of these categories.

With respect to the extent to which officials feel their communities are prepared for an emergency, the survey results indicated that respondents in large communities were more confident in their ability to deal with major emergencies than their counterparts in smaller communities.^[101]

And the smaller the community, the less confident the respondents seemed. 64.7% of respondents from small municipalities, and 65% of those from medium size municipalities wrote that they felt they would be somewhat prepared for major emergencies, but only 28.6% of respondents from very small municipalities reported that they felt their community would be somewhat prepared for major emergencies, while 35.7% indicated that they would be prepared for minor emergencies and another 35.7% indicated that they would only be somewhat prepared for minor emergencies.[102]

Finally, it must be noted that some very small and small cities rely heavily on volunteers and volunteer organizations in neighbouring communities to assist them in case of an emergency. For instance, the respondent from Orillia, Ontario, stated:

Any incident that is larger than a single family residence usually requires assistance from our surrounding fire departments. Any incident that was prolonged for any time would also require assistance from the surrounding departments. The issue with that is that they are all volunteer departments.

There has been a lot of talk about vertical cooperation and if the responses to this question suggest anything to the Committee—and the comments of the respondent from Orillia highlight this theme—it was that horizontal cooperation between communities and regions needs to, and does, happen all the time.

The Committee believes that communities being prepared to help one another keys element of emergency preparedness.

Through the questionnaire, the Committee aimed to investigate whether communities were satisfied with the preparedness of their command and communications structures. Three themes seemed to emerge from the responses.

First, respondents from larger communities tended to be more satisfied with their command and communications structures than those of smaller communities. Specifically, 75% of respondents in large cities indicated that they were satisfied, whereas in all smaller cities combined, only 55.4% of respondents indicated that they were satisfied, and 30.8% reported being somewhat satisfied.[103]

Second, smaller municipalities, classified as somewhat satisfied, usually reported that, while they felt their command structure was satisfactory, communications represented a problem.

These respondents generally noted that that communications structures were problematic because either:

Further, some of them blamed their inability to update systems on insufficient funding. The respondent from Orillia, Ontario, exemplifies many of these concerns, stating:

The respondent from Woodstock, Ontario, emphasized that the problem is not going away any time soon, writing:

However the responses showed that this is not a problem limited to Ontario. Medicine Hat, Alberta, for example, is grappling with similar issues. According to the respondent,

The third theme was that some respondents, while satisfied with their local structure, were concerned that regional command would be a problem.

The respondent from Owen Sound, Ontario, for example, expressed a concern about both regional command and communications: “Our local command structure is alright. Communications would be a major problem as emergency response services are on different frequencies. Regional command and communication would most certainly be problematic.”

Similarly, the respondent from Edmonton, Alberta, reported that he was not satisfied with the regional emergency response structure:

Respondents were also asked whether emergency officials in their municipalities have the ability to unilaterally interrupt television and/or radio broadcasts on command.

Overall, only 24.7% of respondents indicated the ability to unilaterally interrupt televisions broadcasts, while 28.6% indicated the same capacity for radio. In contrast, 75.3% of respondents said that they do not have this ability with regard to television, and 71.4% respondents indicated that they are unable to unilaterally interrupt radio broadcasts.[104]

Those respondents indicating that they could not unilaterally interrupt broadcasts were further asked to elaborate on how they are able to broadcast messages during emergencies. The vast majority of these respondents (81% for television and 89.1% for radio) stated that they would get their message out with the cooperation of broadcasters.[105]

The remaining few did not respond to this portion of the question, or indicated that they would have to rely on persons of higher authority (a provincial emergency coordinator, for instance) to arrange emergency broadcast on television and radio.

Ability to Unilaterally Interrupt Television and Radio for Emergency Broadcasts Among Responding Communities by Categorized Size (%)

	Very Small	Small	Medium	Large	Overall

Television
Yes	32.0%	31.8%	4.5%	37.5%	24.7%
No	68.0%	68.2%	95.5%	62.5%	75.3%

Radio
Yes	44.0%	31.8%	4.5%	37.5%	28.6%
No	56.0%	68.2%	95.5%	62.5%	71.4%

Some respondents reported experiencing difficulty obtaining cooperation from local media and suggested that a legislated ability to interrupt broadcasts would be useful and valuable.

The respondent from Guelph, Ontario, mentioned that a well-known cable company would not broadcast warning bands on all of their channels because they apparently have contracts that prevent them from “adding content” to their broadcasts. He suggested that the federal government could be of assistance by empowering cable television networks to add content to their broadcasts through legislation.

That said, the Committee generally agrees with the respondent’s suggestion and recommends very similar action in Chapter Four.

The respondent from Guelph was not alone. Other respondents suggested that it would be beneficial if the government were to enable them to have the unilateral ability to interrupt broadcasts. For example, the respondent from Montreal, Quebec, responded:

The Committee found this response especially telling with regards to imminent emergencies but feels that permission should be sought from broadcasters whenever there life or limb is not at risk. And in every case of unilateral interruption, the Committee believes that it must be publicly justified afterwards.

Respondents were asked whether they have identified and warehoused the supplies needed to handle the various emergencies and disasters that could reasonably be expected to occur.

Only a very small percentage of respondents, 13%, clearly indicated that their municipality has warehoused an adequate store of emergency supplies. And 27.3% of respondents stated that their municipalities have not warehoused any emergency supplies. [106]

In response to another part of the same question, 41.6% of respondents indicated that they have identified supplies available in the private sector and some mentioned that agreements are in place for the purposes of obtaining supplies from local merchants.^[107]

Municipalities without supplies often cited a lack of funding and limited space as the main impediments to collecting and maintaining an inventory of emergency supplies. Furthermore, among those respondents that reported having some supplies (most often emergency bedding and some medical supplies, and in some cases, mobile kitchens), some noted that their supplies are outdated.

As discussed in Chapter 2, the Committee took considerable interest in Health Canada’s system of 1,600 emergency caches. Because of concerns raised by discrepancies between testimony and field experience, the Committee asked respondents about their knowledge of the caches and procedures for using them.

23% claimed to have some knowledge of the caches, but were unaware of procedures for using them, or did no the location and/or contents of the caches.[109]

Only10% were aware of both the caches and the procedure for accessing them.[110]

Some respondents, like the one from Cornwall, Ontario, below, did praise the caches:

The Committee notes that the Ice Storm occurred several years ago is concerned that the cache has not been restocked since.

Others who knew about them were not as sure about the value of the caches. As the respondent from Langley, British Columbia, wrote:

In one particularly alarming response, referring to a “mobile hospital kit”, the respondent from Medicine Hat, Alberta, stated:

The Committee was appalled by the events the respondent from Medicine Hat related and more generally by the discrepancy between Dr. St. John’s 10 February 2003 testimony before the Committee and the experiences related to the Committee by some of the communities who responded to the questionnaire.

The Committee is of the view that Health Canada’s policy must immediately be reversed so that:

3. and they are sufficiently knowledgeable about the cache that they can include it in their emergency plan.

When asked if they would rely on federal and provincial assistance in the event of a cyber-attack, or a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) emergency, the majority of respondents in large municipalities answered either that they would not or may not need any assistance.

Ottawa appeared to be the best prepared: “We currently have a CBRN Team in Ottawa that can respond to incidents in Ottawa as well as to other places in the Province through a Memorandum of Understanding with the Province of Ontario.”

In contrast, over 82.4% of respondents from very small, small, and medium municipalities indicated that they would rely on federal and provincial aid in the event of a CBRN emergency and the remaining 17.6% of respondents from very small, small and medium municipalities indicated that they might require such aid.[111]

The Committee is of a view that providing for the 82.4% of municipalities who feel they would rely on Federal and Provincial aid in the event of a CBRN event must be a matter of priority for the Federal and Provincial authorities to resolve.

The respondent from Sarnia expressed disappointment in the federal government’s CBRN unit allocation decisions:

Respondents were asked in two questions to indicate what level of assistance their community expects from the provincial government in the event of a major emergency. The first addressed past experiences in dealing with their provincial government. The second addressed future expectations of their provincial governments. In each question, respondents were also asked about the timeliness of provincial aid, and who did or should bear its cost.

Again, the most significant factor is related to the size of the municipality. Respondents from large municipalities were more confident in their self-sufficiency than their smaller counterparts. 100% of respondents from large cities indicated that they received little to no aid in the past.[112] 50% of large community respondents said that they would not look to the province for any help, 37.5% stated they would want some help, and only 12.5% indicated a desire for whatever help would be necessary, to respond to any future emergencies.[113]

In contrast, among municipalities in the three smallest categories, 9.4% of respondents said they would expect major or total support in the event of a future emergency, 48.4% indicated that they would expect whatever help is necessary to resolve the crisis, and 34.4% stated they would want some help.^[114]

Overall, most respondents indicated that they expected provincial and federal governments to step in only after their own resources have been depleted. For instance, the respondent from Brandon, Manitoba, stated: “The amount of help required would depend on the scale of the situation. We respond with the citizens until our resources are used up. Help should arrive when we need it. Not before or after.”

The Committee recognizes this is a complex problem and understands that there is a need for provincial and federal aid but won’t step in and say exactly what it will be. The “major/total support” category indicates an expressed need for the province to either take over the emergency response or to provide the bulk of the resources necessary to resolve a crisis. The “whatever is necessary” category indicates an ability to respond to a major emergency, but with the expectation that the province will provide a substantial amount of the resources that may be necessary to resolve the crisis. The “some help” category indicates a perceived ability to handle most crises, but a realization that extra help could be required during a major or prolonged emergency

Finally, certain smaller communities indicated an almost fatalistic attitude that they do not expect any assistance in the case of a major emergency because they feel they will be neglected, as resources will be directed toward larger centres.

The respondent from the Alberni Valley Emergency Program in British Columbia echoed these concerns writing:

From this the Committee notes that it would be prudent for municipalities to sustain themselves for at least the first 48 hours in an emergency.

In addition, some questions related to the federal government’s role in municipal emergency preparedness were asked. Most respondents expressed either a lack of awareness or dissatisfaction with respect to the federal government's role in emergency preparedness and response. While some respondents were knowledgeable and grateful of the federal help they receive, others indicated that their ability to be prepared for emergencies is limited in part due to a lack of support from the federal government.

When asked if the JEPP program was helpful, respondents expressed different opinions. Overall, 47.8% of respondents indicated that they found the program helpful, and 22.4% found it somewhat helpful.[115]

While the majority of respondents in very small cities found the program helpful, only 31.3% of small communities, 47.1% of medium communities and 42.9% of large communities responded that they thought the program was helpful.[116]

Even those with positive answers made suggestions for reforming the program. Typical complaints included that the funding was inadequate (e.g., for training and a greater diversity of equipment), the application process was too complicated and deadlines did not line up with municipal budget planning. As well, because knowledge of how much funding would be granted is often unavailable, some municipalities complained that they cannot plan satisfactorily.

Furthermore, different cities appear to have different impressions of the JEPP program. The respondent from Edmonton said “JEPP money is too limited to be of use to a city the size of Edmonton.” And the Calgary respondent added that, while useful, JEPP funding “…has limitations. Equipment, by itself, does not provide emergency response to citizens. Training and education are important components of emergency preparedness programs.”

The respondent from Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, suggested that “The development of [an] online application system with a pre approved equipment or supplier list may be helpful in speeding up the process.”

The respondent from Stratford, Ontario, found JEPP helpful but suggested it could do more:

The respondent from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, for example found there was room for improvement in the way JEPP operates and disperses funds, stating:

Respondents were asked two questions about the leadership and coordination offered by the Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness (OCIPEP) and their confidence in its ability to lead a national-level response to an emergency.

The Committee was surprised at the number of respondents who displayed a lack of knowledge and/or satisfaction with the role that OCIPEP plays in emergency preparedness. In response to question 5.6, 45.1% of respondents indicated that they did not know enough about the organization to comment.[117] Many respondents were unaware of the role or actions of the organization and stated that they did not know how to respond or that they had no comment.

Overall, respondents to this question reported a low level of satisfaction with the national leadership and co-ordination provided by OCIPEP. 38% of respondents answered that they were not satisfied with the leadership and co-ordination provided by this organization. Only 9.9% of respondents indicated that they were satisfied with the services of OCIPEP.[118]

It must be noted that 62.5% of respondents from large municipalities indicated that they were not satisfied with OCIPEP. As well, among very small municipalities, only 34.6% respondents indicated some knowledge of OCIPEP and only 7.7% were satisfied with OCIPEP’s leadership and co-ordination.[119]

James Harlick, the assistant deputy minister responsible for OCIPEP, defined for the Committee in July 2001 OCIPEP’s responsibilities to include “awareness and outreach to potential partners in the provinces and territories and the private sector.” Given those responsibilities, the Committee finds the responses it received telling and believes it reflects negatively on OCIPEP in a fundamental way.

The results of the survey indicate to the Committee that almost half of the communities that responded don’t what OCIPEP is, and of those that know, well over half don’t speak favourably about it.

Not surprisingly, similar results were received when respondents were asked, “Are you confident that OCIPEP will be able to co-ordinate the national-level response to a major disaster or emergency?” 29% of respondents stated that they are not confident, and 55% indicated that they did not know the answer to this question. Only 13% of respondents reported that they are confident that OCIPEP could handle a major disaster or emergency.[120]

The Committee notes what Prime Minister Chrétien said when he initiated OCIPEP’s creation just over two years ago: “The protection of Canada’s critical infrastructure from the risks of failure or disruption is essential to assuring the health, safety, security and economic well-being of Canadians.” The Committee also notes with concern the lack of confidence that communities have expressed in the principal organization dedicated to ensuring that protection.

When asked what was considered to be a successful response to an emergency, all those in large municipalities who responded to this question indicated "resolving the crisis". Again, a notable difference exists in the answers depending on the size of the municipality.

Smaller communities have lower expectations of being able to resolve a crisis. Only 29.2% of very small communities stated that resolving the crisis would be a successful response, while 20.8% of respondents answered resolving or containing the crisis, 33.3% responded only containing, and another 16.7% indicated that making an initial response would be their goal.[121]

The Committee notes the difference in expectations and believes that provinces and the federal government must find a way to bring the expectations of small and medium communities up to the same levels as large communities. Basically everyone needs to understand that, if needs be, they can reach out to someone else for help.

When asked if they desired tighter links with the provincial and federal governments, most respondents indicated that they had such a wish. 80.6% of respondents indicated that they would like to develop closer links with the federal government, and only 19.4% of respondents indicated that they did not.[122]

Often, those who responded that they did not want tighter links also noted that their relationship with their province was adequate and that their links with the federal government were well established through their provincial government.

Those who wanted closer links, however, complained about the existing relationship between the three orders of government and expressed a desire for more direct access to the federal government. One respondent explained that a reliance on traditional federal-provincial-municipal arrangements to prepare for and respond to emergencies has prevented a national approach to emergency management.

As well, 65.2% of respondents indicated they desired tighter links with their provincial government, while 34.8% stated that they did not. The latter often explained that they already had a good working relationship with their provincial government.[123]

The Committee is of the view that a national as opposed to a federal response is appropriate for emergency preparedness.

1. Health Canada develop a national plan to counteract potential outbreaks of the other five micro-organisms, and that it report to Parliament and the public by 31 March 2005 that this is completed. (Chapter 1, pg 10)

2. Canada’s Minister for Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness negotiate agreements with the governments of Ontario and Quebec to ensure that the citizens of all provinces in Canada have timely access to additional police to deal with any incident designated by provincial authorities to be an emergency. (Chapter 2, pg 20)

3. the Canadian Forces enhance their capabilities for their role in national emergencies by:

4. the focus of the Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) be changed to domestic disaster assistance, and that to increase its effectiveness all of its personnel should be stationed at a single location. (Chapter 2, pg 22)

5. Health Canada overhaul the way it administers and manages the emergency caches it controls, with the aim of more efficiently and effectively aiding first responder agencies to help Canadians across the country. The overhaul should ensure, among other things, that local officials are:

6. the federal government provide four additional years of funding ($5 million per year) for the purchase of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear protection equipment. (Chapter 2, pg 26)

7. the Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness (OCIPEP) structure its “lessons learned” archive so that it is:

8. endorses the recommendations of the National Advisory Committee on SARS and Public Health (the Naylor Committee) and recommends that the government implement them.[125] (Chapter 3, pg 39)

9. the Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness (OCIPEP) negotiate memoranda of understanding between the federal government and the provinces and territories that detail inter-jurisdictional responsibilities for both emergency preparedness and response. (Chapter 3, pg 40)

10. the Canadian Forces Militia be equipped and trained for emergency preparedness operations. (Chapter 3, pg 45)

11. the Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness (OCIPEP) include the Canadian Forces Militia in the national inventory of emergency preparedness resources, and that first responders receive details on the Militia’s assets and capabilities.
(Chapter 3, pg 45)

12. in order to assure that authorities have the power and the capability to interrupt radio and television broadcasts during emergencies:

13. the Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness (OCIPEP) encourage the installation of a system like “Reverse 911^®” in all municipalities, funding at least a third of the cost, with remaining costs to be divided between the provinces / territorries and municipalities.[126] (Chapter 4, pg 55)

14. the Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness (OCIPEP) enter into negotiations to equip the entire first responder community nationwide in their vicinity with handheld communications devices, with the federal government funding at least a third of the cost, with remaining costs to be divided between the provinces / territories and municipalities. (Chapter 4, pg 55)

15. each order of government create the capacity to communicate with its first responders, within itself and with other orders of government. All systems should have wireless back-ups.[127] (Chapter 4, pg 55)

16. the Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness (OCIPEP) develop a greater sensitivity to the differing needs of the First Responders in communities across Canada. (Chapter 4, pg 59)

17. that relevant legislation be amended so that the Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness (OCIPEP) is required to:

19. commensurate funding be provided to the larger communities in return for their agreeing to provide regional assistance. (Chapter 5, pg 73)

[1] Thomas S. Axworthy, “Testimony,” Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, Issue 24, 37^th Parl., 2^nd Sess., (29 September 2003).

[2] In a 1998 study funded by the Department of Justice Canada, nearly 22 per cent of Canadian household respondents said that they possessed a firearm, compared with 48.6 per cent of American households. The study also noted that American respondents were much more likely to be a victim of a firearm-related attack. See Richard Block, “Working Document – Firearms in Canada and Eight Other Western Countries: Selected Findings of the 1996 International Crime (Victim) Survey,” (Ottawa: Department of Justice Canada, January 1998) vi-vii. Available at: http://canada.justice.gc.ca/en/ps/rs/rep/ wd97-3a-e.html. Last visited: 13 November 2003.

[3] Christopher Guly, “Ottawa Aiming to Thwart Cyber-Terrorists,” The Globe and Mail, Thursday 26 June 2003: B18.

[4] Thomas V. Inglesby, et al., “Consensus Statement - Anthrax as a Biological Weapon,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 281.18 (May 1999). Available at: http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/ 281/18/1735?#REF-JST80027-1. Last visited: 7 November 2003.

[5] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “Smallpox Questions and Answers: The Disease and the Vaccine,” (31 March 2003). Available at: http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/overview/faq.asp. Last visited: 7 November 2003.

[6] CDC, “Frequently Asked Questions About Plague” (3 October 2002). Available at: http://www.bt.cdc.gov /agent/plague/faq.asp. Last visited: 7 November 2003.

[7]CDC, “Fact Sheet on Botulism,” (14 October 2001). Available at: http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/botulism/ factsheet.pdf. Last visited: 7 November 2003.

[8] David T. Innis, et al. “Tularemia as a Biological Weapon: Medical and Public Health Management,” Journal of the American Medical Association 285.21 (June 2001): 2763. Available at: http://www.bt.cdc.gov/Agent/Tularemia/TularemiaConsensus.pdf. Last visited: 7 November 2003.

[9] Peter B. Jahrling, “Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers,” Medical Aspects of Chemical and Biological Warfare, Frederick R. Sidell, Ernest T. Takafuji, and David R. Franz, eds., (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Surgeon General, 1997). Available at: http://www.nbc-med.org/SiteContent/HomePage/WhatsNew/MedAspects/ contents.html. Last visited: 7 November 2003.

[10] Joseph Cirincione with Jon Wolfsthal and Miriam Rajkumar, Deadly Arsenals: Tracking Weapons of Mass Destruction, (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2002) 57-60, 62.

[11] Health Canada, “Bioterrorism and Public Health,” Canada Communicable Disease Report, 27.04 (15 February 2001). Available at: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/pphb-dgspsp/publicat/ccdr-rmtc/01vol27/ dr2704ea.html. Last visited: 16 October 2003.

[12] Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness (OCIPEP), “The Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness,” (12 December 2003). Available at: http://www.ocipep.gc.ca/whoweare/index_e.asp. Last visited: 12 January 2004.

[13] James Harlick, “Testimony,” Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, Issue 2, 37^th Parl., 1^st Sess., (19 July 2001).

[14] OCIPEP, “Fact Sheets: National Disaster Mitigation Strategy,” (January 2003). Available at: http://www.ocipep.gc.ca/info_pro/ fact_sheets/general/P_NDMS_e.asp. Last visited: 4 November 2003.

[15] The Honourable Anne McLellan, P.C., M.P., “Statement at the Emergency Management Alberta Operations Centre in Edmonton,” (18 December 2003). Available at: http://www.sgc.gc.ca/publications/speeches/20031218_e.asp. Last visited: 12 January 2004.

[16] Michel D'Avignon, “Testimony,” Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, Issue 2, 37^th Parl., 1^st Sess., (19 July 2001).

[17] Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Provincial Police Services Agreement: Interpretation and Administrative Procedures, (Ottawa: RCMP, 1995) 60, 62.

[18] Greg Maddison, “Testimony,” Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, Issue 14, 37^th Parl., 1^st Sess., (6 May 2002).

[19] Ron St. John, “Testimony,” Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, Issue 10, 37^th Parl., 2^nd Sess., (10 February 2003).

[20] The exact locations of the elements of the stockpile system are secret.

[21] St. John, “Testimony,” (10 February 2003).

[22] Tait was Fire Chief when he testified to the Committee in March 2003. He retired later that year. See Glen Tait, “Testimony,” Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, Issue 13, 37^th Parl., 2^nd Sess., (31 March 2003); David Blackmore, “Testimony,” Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, Issue 13, 37^th Parl., 2^nd Sess., (31 March 2003); and Bruce Burrell, “Testimony,” Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, Issue 22, 37^th Parl., 2^nd Sess., (23 September 2003).

[23] Grant Purves, “Notes from the Visit of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence to Windsor,” (27 February 2003).

[24] The responses to the Committee’s questionnaire are analysed in Chapter 6 of this report.

[25] Different forms of HERTs may be necessary: there could be rapid response teams, more “basic” teams that could be smaller and drawn from small as well as large communities, and speciality teams that could provide expertise in a specific area. The pre-trained and equipped personnel also require appropriate financial, administrative and information technology support.

[26] The Honourable John McCallum, P.C., M.P., “Letter to Dave Hill, the Chair of the [Albertan] Capital Region Emergency Preparedness Partnership,” (6 January 2003): 2.

[27] McCallum, “Letter to Dave Hill,” 2.

[28] Deryl Kloster, “Testimony,” Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, Issue 9, 37^th Parl., 2^nd Sess., (28 January 2003).

[29] Cal Johnston, “Testimony,” Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, Issue 7, 37^th Parl., 2^nd Sess., (27 January 2003).

[30] D'Avignon, “Testimony,” (19 July 2001).

[31] Mike Theilmann, “Testimony,” Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, Issue 2, 37^th Parl., 1^st Sess., (19 July 2001).

[32] St. John, “Testimony,” (10 February 2003).

[33] Health Canada, “Avian Influenza,” (3 February 2004). Available at: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/english/ diseases/flu/avian.html. Last visited: 3 February 2004; and Health Canada, “West Nile Virus,” (26 June 2003). Available at: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/english/westnile/surveillance.html. Last visited: 28 January 2004.

[34] Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, “Food and Agriculture Emergency Response System,” (January 1999) 1.

[35] On 13 February 2004, after the Committee had finished work on the substantive part of this report, Health Canada released the Canadian Pandemic Influenza Plan to, as stated in the Plan’s Preface, “assist all jurisdictions with the main components of planning, including surveillance … health services, emergency services, public health measures and communications.” The Committee is interested by the plan but did not have time to consider it before completing this report. The plan is available at http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/pphb-dgspsp/cpip-pclcpi/.”

[36] National Advisory Committee on SARS and Public Health, “Learning From SARS – Renewal of Public Health in Canada: Executive Summary,” (15 October 2003). Available at: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/english/ protection/warnings/sars/learning/ EngSe30_exec.htm. Last visited: 6 November 2003.

[37] National Advisory Committee on SARS and Public Health, “Learning From SARS – Renewal of Public Health in Canada: Executive Summary,” (15 October 2003).

[38] The Naylor Committee recommendations are attached as an appendix to this report.

[39] Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology, “Reforming Health Protection and Promotion in Canada: Time to Act,” (November 2003). Available at: http://www.parl.gc.ca/37/2/ parlbus/commbus/senate/com-e/soci-e/rep-e/repfinnov03-e.htm. Last visited: 13 January 2004.

[40] Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology, “Reforming Health Protection and Promotion in Canada: Time to Act,” (November 2003).

[41] Sheela Basrur, “Testimony,” Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, Issue 26, 37^th Parl., 2^nd Sess., (30 October 2003).

[42] Harlick, “Testimony,” 19 July 2001.

[43] Janet Bax, “Testimony,” Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, Issue 25, 37^th Parl., 2^nd Sess., (20 October 2003).

[44] St. John, “Testimony,” (10 February 2003).

[45] Bax, “Testimony,” (20 October 2003).

[46] Bax, “Testimony,” (20 October 2003).

[47] Tait, “Testimony,” (31 March 2003).

[48] Mike Theilmann, “Testimony,” Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, Issue 17, (19 June 2002).

[49] Theilmann, “Testimony,” (19 June 2002).

[50] Bax, “Testimony,” (20 October 2003).

[51] Randy Wolsey, “Testimony,” Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, Issue 9, 37^th Parl., 2^nd Sess., (28 January 2003).

[52] Blair McGregor, “Testimony from Report of a Fact-finding Visit: Vancouver,” Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, 37^th Parl., 2^nd Sess., (30 January 2003).

[53] Brian Travis, “Testimony from Report of a Fact-finding Visit: Vancouver,” Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, 37^th Parl., 2^nd Sess., (30 January 2003).

[54] The Naylor Committee recommendations are attached as an appendix to this report.

[55] Alan Bartley, “Testimony,” Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, Issue 2, 37^th Parl., 1^st Sess., (19 July 2001).

[56] Dave Quick, “Testimony,” Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, Issue 7, 37^th Parl., 2^nd Sess., (27 January 2003).

[57] Basrur, “Testimony,” (30 October 2003).

[58] The Committee referred to the priority departments in a report entitled Canada’s Coastlines: The Longest Under-Defended Borders in the World (October 2003) 158. The priority departments are those that the Committee recommended should be on a Cabinet-level national security Committee: Foreign Affairs, National Defence, Solicitor General (now Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness), Health Canada, Finance, Justice, and Immigration.

[59] Bartley, “Testimony,” (19 July 2001).

[60] Emergency Management Alberta, “Emergency Public Warning System,” (undated document). Available at: http://www3.gov.ab.ca/ma/ema/epws.cfm. Last visited: 31 October 2003.

[61] “Reverse 911” is an example of a community notification system that uses database and geographic information technologies to saturate specific areas with up to 1,000 calls an hour.

[62] The Access Toronto Information Line is a public information service that provides a variety of services to help citizens get information about Toronto's municipal government. Access Toronto provides information on City programs, events and services, traffic and transportation, language services, and contact information for City employees and departments.

[63] Barry Gutteridge, “Testimony,” Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, Issue 26, 37^th Parl., 2^nd Sess., (30 October 2003). Mr. Gutteridge is the Commissioner of the Department of Works and Emergency Services for the City of Toronto.

[64] Martin Rudner, “Testimony,” Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, Issue 16, 37^th Parl., 2^nd Sess., (3 June 2003).

[65] Neil McKerrell, “Testimony,” Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, Issue 26, 37^th Parl., 2^nd Sess., (30 October 2003).

[66] The security and intelligence community includes PCO, DND (responsible for the Communications Security Establishment), the Ministry of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness (responsible for OCIPEP, Canadian Security Intelligence Service and RCMP), the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, the Canadian Border Services Agency, Department of Justice Canada, and Transport Canada.

[67] Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, Canada’s Coastlines: The Longest Under-Defended Border in the World, vol. 1, (Ottawa: October 2003) 126-7, 131.

[68] Prime Minister’s Office, “Changing Government – Securing Canada’s Public Health and Safety,” (12 December 2003). Available at: http://www1.pm.gc.ca/eng/news.asp?page=3. Last visited: 13 January 2004.

[69] Harlick, “Testimony,” (20 October 2003), 25:17-18.

[70] Harlick, “Testimony,” (20 October 2003), 25: 18.

[71] Michael Lester, “Testimony,” Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, Issue 22, 37^th Parl., 2^nd Sess., (23 September 2003).

[72] OCIPEP, “Summary – Assessment A – OCIPEP,” unpublished document, no page numbers, (24 September 2001). Source: Access to Information and Privacy Request A0041733-1-003492.

[73] Harlick, “Testimony,” (20 October 2003), 25:24-26.

[74] Harlick, “Testimony,” (20 October 2003), 25:26. Some of that exchange is excerpted at the end of Chapter Two of this report.

[75] Harlick, “Testimony,” (20 October 2003).

[76] “Reverse 911^®” is an example of a community notification system that uses database and geographic information technologies to saturate specific areas with up to 1,000 calls an hour.

[77] Any crisis that involves a loss of electricity rules out some forms of communications.

[78] Fantino, “Letter,” (8 March 2002): 4.

[79] Julian Fantino, “Letter,” (27 March 2002). Cited in Grant Purves, “Briefing Note – First Responders,” Library of Parliament document, Prepared for the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, (27 January 2003).

[80] William Pasel, “Testimony,” Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, Issue 13, 37^th Parl., 2^nd Sess., (31 March 2003).

[81] Deryl Kloster, “Letter to Senator Colin Kenny,” (18 February 2003): 3.

[82] Sheela V. Basrur, “Letter to Barbara Reynolds, Clerk of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence. Cited from Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, Canadian Security and Military Preparedness, app. 2, (Ottawa: February 2002) 145.

[83] Julian Fantino, “Testimony,” Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, Issue 14, 37^th Parl., 2^nd Sess., (6 March 2002).

[84] Cal Johnston, “Testimony,” Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, Issue 7, 37^th Parl., 2^nd Sess., (27 January 2003).

[85] Dave Hill, “Testimony,” Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, Issue 9, 37^th Parl., 2^nd Sess., (28 January 2003).

[86] Capital Region Emergency Preparedness Partnership, “Briefing Note,” Provided to the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence for its Hearing in Edmonton, (28 January 2003).

[87] Dave Hill, “Letter to Prime Minister Chrétien,” (16 October 2002): 2. Copy received by the Committee in February 2003.

[88] The other cities that would deploy within Alberta to help smaller communities are Fort McMurray, Grande Prairie, Red Deer, Calgary, Lethbridge and Medicine Hat.

[89] Wolsey, “Testimony,” (28 January 2003).

[90] Wolsey, “Testimony,” (28 January 2003).

[91] Purves, “Notes of the Visit…to Windsor,” (27 February 2003).

[92] Tait, “Testimony,” (31 March 2003).

[93] Blackmore, “Testimony,” (31 March 2003).

[94] Rudy Fries, “Testimony,” Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, Issue 13, 37^th Parl., 2^nd Sess., (31 March 2003).

[95] Revised versions of two questions were sent out subsequently.

[96] The data above relates that 8 of 8 large municipalities responding, 14 of 22 medium-sized municipalities (excluding 1 non-response), 15 of 23 small municipalities and 13 of 32 very small municipalities answered that they have an official dedicated to emergency coordination.

[97] The data above relates that 5 of 22 medium-sized municipalities (excluding 1 non-response), 6 of 23 small municipalities and 11 of 32 very small municipalities answered that there emergency official is also the Fire Chief.

[98] Categories were not mutually exclusive and respondents could indicate more than one response, which explains why the total reported is greater than the number of responses the Committee received.

[99] The data in this table excludes 1 large municipality, 3 medium-sized municipalities, 6 small municipalities, and 4 very small municipalities because of nonresponses.

[100] The data in this sentence relates that 32 of 86 respondents believe they have a port-based vulnerability and 10 of 86 respondents believe they border-based vulnerability.

[101] It must be noted that respondents were asked an open-ended question and were not presented with a scale of various levels of preparedness. Results presented here are based on a content analysis of responses to an open-ended question. Large cities that are classified as prepared to deal with a major emergency showed a clear confidence in their ability to handle any major emergency that might occur. Those cities classified in the somewhat prepared category, on the other hand, indicated an ability to handle some types of major emergencies, or most major emergencies, but only for a limited time period. Being prepared for minor emergencies indicates an ability to deal with routine problems such as house fires, small-scale evacuations, and other situations that do not result in a citywide state of emergency. A city being somewhat prepared for a minor emergency indicates a potential inability to effectively respond to what is likely to be considered by most in similar circumstances as a routine issue.

[102] The number of non-responses to this question, by category, are as follows: very small, 4; small, 6; medium, 3; large, 0.

[103] The data in this paragraph relates that 6 of 8 large communities and 36 of 65 medium to very small sized communities (excluding 13 non-responses), answered they were satisfied in response to the open-ended and multi-pronged question, “Is your community satisfied with its local and regional command and communications structure? Does it require a more unified and centralized structure, and if so, why is this not in place?” 20 of 65 medium to very small sized communities (excluding 13 non-responses), answered they were somewhat satisfied in answer to the same question.

The nature of the question made it difficult to classify answers. For instance, respondents often did not indicate whether they were talking about their local or the regional command structure. The somewhat satisfied category indicates a general satisfaction combined with complaints and/or suggestions for improvement in command or communications structure.

[104] The data in this paragraph relates that 19 of 77 communities (excluding 9 non-responses) answered they were able to interrupt television broadcasts, and 22 of 77 indicated that they could interrupt radio broadcasts.

[105] The data in this sentence relates that 47 of 58 communities that said they were unable to unilaterally interrupt TV (there were 6 non-responses), and 49 of 55 communities that said they were unable to unilaterally interrupt radio (there were 2 non-responses), said they would get their message out with the cooperation of local broadcaster.

[106] The data in this paragraph relates that 10 out of 77 communities (excluding 9 non-responses) clearly indicated that their municipality has warehoused an adequate store of emergency supplies and 21 of 77 communities clearly indicated their municipalities had not warehoused any emergency supplies.

[107] The data in this sentence relates that 32 out of 77 communities (excluding 9 non-responses) indicated that their municipality has identified supplies in the private sector. These responses are not mutually exclusive of those in the preceding sentence as the identification of private sector supplies was asked in a question separate from the question of warehousing goods.

[108] The data in this sentence relates that 52 out of 78 communities (excluding 8 non-responses) indicated that they had no knowledge of the caches.

[109] The data in this sentence relates that 18 out of 78 communities (excluding 8 non-responses) indicated that they knew the caches existed but did not know how to access them.

[110] The data in this sentence relates that 8 out of 78 (excluding 8 non-responses) indicated that they knew the caches existed and also knew how to access them.

[111] The data in this paragraph relates that 56 out of 68 communities (excluding 10 non-responses) indicated that they would require aid and that 12 out of 68 communities might require aid in the event of a CBRN emergency.

[112] This sentence relates that 6 out of 6 large communities (excluding 2 non-responses) responded they received little to no aid in the past.

[113] Of the 8 large communities, 4 expect little to no aid in the future, 3 of 8 would want some help in the future and 1 of 8 would desire any help necessary in the future.

[114] The data in this paragraph relates that 6 of 64 smaller communities (excluding 14 non-responses) indicated they would expect major or total support in the event of a future emergency, 31 of 64 indicated that they would expect whatever help is necessary to resolve the crisis, and 22 of 64 stated they would want some help.

[115] The data in this paragraph relates that 32 of 67 communities (excluding 19 non-responses) indicated they found the main federal funding process (JEPP) helpful in preparing their community for an emergency and 15 of 67 communities (excluding 19 non-responses) found JEPP somewhat helpful.

[116] The data in this sentence relates that 16 of 27 very small communities (excluding 5 non-responses), 5 of 16 small communities (excluding 8 non-responses), 8 of 17 medium communities (excluding 6 non-responses) and 3 of 7 large communities (excluding 1 non-response) indicated that they found the main federal funding process (JEPP) helpful in preparing their community for an emergency.

[117] The data in this sentence relates that 32 of 71 communities (excluding 15 non-responses) indicated in question 5.6 that they did not know enough about OCIPEP to comment.

[118] The data in this sentence relates that 27 of 71 communities (excluding 15 nonresponses) indicated that they were not satisfied with OCIPEP, and 7 of 71 were satisfied.

[119] The data in this paragraph and displayed in the graph below relates that: 5 of 8 large communities were not satisfied with OCIPEP, 9 of 26 very small communities (excluding 6 non-responses) indicate some knowledge of OCIPEP, and 2 of 26 very small communities were satisfied with OCIPEP’s leadership and coordination..

[120] The data in this paragraph relates that out of 69 communities (excluding 17 nonresponses), 20 stated they were not confident, 38 replied they could not know whether or not to be confident and 9 said they were confident in OCIPEP’s ability to coordinate a national emergency.

[121] The data in this paragraph relates that 7 out of 28 communities (excluding 8 non-responses) would aim to resolve the crisis, 5 out of 28 would seek to resolve or contain one, 8 out of 28 would seek to contain, and 4 out of 28 would aim to make an initial response.

[122] This sentence relates that 50 out of 62 communities (excluding 24 non-responses) said they would desire closer links with the federal government and 12 of 62 said they wouldn’t desire closer federal links.

[123] The data in this paragraph relates that 43 of 66 communities (excluding 20 non-responses) responded they desired closer links with the provincial government and 23 of 66 replied they had no such desire.

[124] The data in this chart relates 50 out of 62 communities (excluding 24 non-responses) said they would desire closer links with the federal government and 12 of 62 said they wouldn’t desire closer federal links; also it relates that 43 of 66 communities (excluding 20 non-responses) responded they desired closer links with the provincial government and 23 of 66 replied they had no such desire.

[125] The Naylor Committee recommendations are attached as an appendix to this report.

[126] “Reverse 911^®” is an example of a community notification system that uses database and geographic information technologies to saturate specific areas with up to 1,000 calls an hour.

[127] Any crisis that involves a loss of electricity rules out some forms of communications.

Expenditures Per Capita of Provincial Population	Federal Share of Disaster Assistance	Provincial Share of Disaster Assistance
$0 to $1	0%	100%
$1 to $3	50%	50%
$3 to $5	75%	25%
$5 and over	90%	10%

Category	Classification	# of replies
A	“Very Small” communities of between 20,000 and 49,999 people	32
B	“Small” communities of between 50,000 and 99,999 people	23
C	“Medium” communities of between 100,000 to 499,999 people	23
D	“large” communities of more than 500,000 people	8

Self-Perception of Emergency Preparedness in Communities by Categorized Size

Level of Preparedness	Very Small	Small	Medium	Large	Overall
Prepared for a major Emergency	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	50.0%	5.5%
Somewhat Prepared for a Major Emergency	28.6%	64.7%	65.0%	50.0%	49.3%
Prepared for a Minor Emergency	35.7%	35.3%	35.0%	0.0%	31.5%
Somewhat Prepared for a Minor Emergency	35.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	13.7%

Desire for Tighter Links with Provincial and Federal
Governments Among Responding Municipalities[124]
	Very Small	Small	Medium	Large	Overall

Federal
Yes	75.0%	75.0%	93.3%	85.7%	80.6%
No	25.0%	25.0%	6.7%	14.3%	19.4%

Provincial
Yes	60.0%	55.6%	81.3%	71.4%	65.2%
No	40.0%	44.4%	18.8%	28.6%	34.8%