Mr. Speaker, one of the government's top priorities is ensuring the safety and security of all Canadians, and that includes keeping Canadians safe from all kinds of disasters. Every year, there are natural disasters that occur in Canada. We have recently seen floods in Manitoba, landslides in British Columbia, forest fires in many regions, in fact, even a landslide in my own riding of Simcoe—Grey. We were all aware of the devastating impact of Hurricane Sandy in the eastern seaboard of the United States. That is why disaster risk reduction and building resilient communities are such an important priority for our government.
Public Safety Canada is responsible for providing leadership and coordination for emergency management activities within the federal government and in collaboration with the provinces and territories, international partners and other stakeholders. The Department of Public Safety works extensively with these key stakeholders on initiatives related to the four pillars of emergency management: prevention, mitigation, preparedness and response and recovery.
Disaster risk reduction is a concept designed to directly support the four pillars approach by analyzing and addressing the underlying risk factors that can lead to disasters. The government previously participated in the World Conference on Disaster Reduction, which was organized by the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. At this conference, 168 countries, including Canada, adopted the “Hyogo Framework for Action”. The role of the framework is to promote a strategic and systematic approach to reducing vulnerabilities and risks to hazards and underscores the need and means for building the resilience of nations and communities to disasters.
In 2009 our government established Canada's platform for disaster risk reduction as part of Canada's commitment to deliver on the Hyogo framework. Canada's platform brings together multidisciplinary stakeholders with the goal of promoting safer and more resilient Canadian communities, including advancing work to reduce risk of vulnerability and impacts of disasters for Canadians, leveraging existing networks to enhance coordination of disaster risk reduction across sectors and enhancing knowledge and information sharing.
Since 2010, Canada's platform has held an annual round table on disaster risk reduction to engage all sectors of society and individual Canadians on ways to foster disaster risk reduction at all levels across the country. The most recent round table took place in October 2012 and it had some 200 participants, representing all sectors, including governments, businesses, NGOs, aboriginal groups and academics.
In accordance with our commitment under the Hyogo framework for action, Canada has also agreed to provide a biannual review of the progress achieved in the implementation of disaster risk reduction activities at a national level. Submitted in 2011, Canada's most recent reporting covered the period of 2009 to 2011.
The member's question that came in the form of a written question regarding disaster risk has been answered and has been subject to a ruling by the Speaker. As was mentioned by the minister and also by my colleagues, the question would have cost Canadian taxpayers in excess of $1,300 just to examine whether the question was possible. In order to answer the 55 sub-questions, it would have cost an untold tens of thousands of dollars.
I can assure the member that Canada's 2011 to 2013 Hyogo framework on action implementation progress report will be finalized in April 2013 and will subsequently be published for public consumption by the United Nations.
Let me assure the member that our government takes the issue of disaster risk reduction seriously. Working with all stakeholders, we will continue to promote disaster risk reduction to ensure our communities are more resilient in all types of disasters.