Bill C-12 (Historical)

Emergency Management Act

An Act to provide for emergency management and to amend and repeal certain Acts

This enactment provides for a national emergency management system that strengthens Canada’s capacity to protect Canadians.

Emergency Management Act

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, like the member, I had the opportunity to be in Sri Lanka and I have seen the devastation that it caused to that particular country and how important it was for the NGOs and for the immediate response we had from the military.

To pick up on the member's point about us being prepared to evacuate people, it is not just in wartime that we are faced with that. We are faced with it right across Asia with the impacts of tsunamis. Those are not nearly the numbers that we are faced with in Lebanon but still substantial numbers. We must be able to provide assistance and get our citizens and residents out of the area.

I do not want to downplay the importance of how poorly I saw the Lebanese war situation handled, having a very large population in my riding and in my community. I agree with the member's assessment that it was handled very poorly. We were clearly not prepared. In that regard I draw to the member's attention paragraph 4(1)(k) in the bill whereby the minister's responsibilities include:

(k) participating, in accordance with Canada’s foreign relations policies, in international emergency management activities;

Therefore, there is an actual direct mandate. It is not as broad as I thought it should be, but quite frankly this legislation clearly was designed to deal with the domestic public disasters, particularly in other emergencies. I should not say public disasters because of course one of the issues could be, for instance, a melt down in one of our nuclear reactors, or an attack on one of them, or on some of our other public utilities. It may not just be a public disaster. It could be an act of terrorism as well.

The proposed legislation is really not designed, as I see it, other than in a very general way, to equip us as a country to deal with international public disasters or incidents that would call for that kind of expertise. Hopefully, as we build that expertise more extensively in this country, it will also teach us how we should be responding in other countries.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to set the record straight. Despite all the lessons in history from World War I, World War II and the tsunami, the member for Scarborough—Agincourt was actually in the government during some of those disasters before Lebanon and frankly did absolutely nothing.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

The Liberals weren't responsible for anything bad.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

I am told they were not responsible, but the fact is that previous government had all kinds of opportunities and did nothing. The member for Scarborough--Agincourt should be ashamed.

I am going to ask the member a question. Frankly, the evacuation in Lebanon was a success. It was an absolute and complete success. I would like the hon. member to comment on the fact that public servants, who the member for Scarborough--Agincourt completely insults, most of whom were not paid, worked 24 hours a day, evacuated 13,000 people in a matter of days, despite the fact the previous government had no emergency management plan.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague from the NDP to recognize the fact that this evacuation mission was incredibly difficult and how successful it was especially dealing with the fact that we had to deal with a number of terrorist organizations in the attempt to get our people out of Lebanon at that very crucial and dangerous time. We had 240 Canadians on the ground going door to door, not just emails, while that member sat on his duff. I wonder if I could get a comment from my hon. colleague on that success.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in echoing the preparedness needed in the planning, coordination and all of that, I cannot lay too much blame at the feet of the present government. That kind of work has to be done well advance.

As much as I am critical of what happened in Lebanon, I want to be very clear that the staff there showed exemplary courage. A number of them moved into the area, right in the midst of that war, in particular in Beirut, which was being bombed on a regular basis all over the city. They took their lives in their hands and moved in. I do not think we can ever say enough to acknowledge the courage they demonstrated. A very large number of additional staff was moved in, fully recognizing that.

The major concern I come back to, because of the experience I had in the first 24, 48, 72 hours, was the contact in Ottawa. I will take some credit. I made some suggestions that ultimately were followed through. However, when I initially made the suggestions, at the other end of the telephone line was blank air. I got a very quiet they had not thought of that type of attitude and/or they would take it under advisement, but it was really not that important. The sense I had, and still to this day, was that the people on the streets, on the front lines in Beirut and Lebanon, knew what was going on, but the senior people here had not taken into account just how serious the situation was until we were 48, 72 hours into the process. Then the planning began.

Again, it comes back to the legislation. Although it does not deal with it enough, the planning has to be in place at the national level so when the incident happens, we begin to kick in right away. That is what happens at the municipal level now. It does not happen at either the provincial or the federal level, and that is what we hope the legislation will see happen. Maybe we will also be ready for the next international incident as well, to deal with both our citizens and those of other countries.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, has the member given any thought, or the House, given any thought as to how we define a disaster or an emergency? We have been asking the House for the last week to declare a state of emergency where homelessness and poverty are concerned.

I have been travelling the country for the last couple of months, looking at some of our major cities where we would not expect there to be an emergency. We see hundreds of people on the streets, not enough housing and not enough shelters. Now communities are passing laws to make it illegal to be homeless in some of those cities.

At what point and how do we finally, as a society and a government, decide that an emergency is an emergency?

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

That is a very good question, Mr. Speaker. When we look at how emergencies are defined, they are defined by repeating the word “emergency”. It appears in the first few sections under interpretation.

The legislation does not address what an emergency is. I agree with my colleague, the member for Sault Ste. Marie, about the tragedy we are faced with, particularly in cities such as Vancouver and Calgary where we have unusually cold climates this early on in the year. There should be a very clear category of when we use these services, and that is not clear in the legislation. We see the results of that when we look at what is happening on our streets in all our major cities across the country.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to speak to the bill. I want to articulate a challenge we have in the future in terms of emergency management within our country.

When we were in government, we implemented a number of suggestions that would go a long way, but we also have a number of challenges that still need to be addressed by the government.

One thing we did was pre-deployed a number of hospitals, which we used internationally. These hospitals are made up of about 200 beds each and they can be deployed on quick notice for emergencies and urgencies within our country.

The other thing we did was set up a spot in Ottawa that was open 24/7. Its job is to act as a central brain to coordinate the internal management of emergencies within our country. We have coordinated that centre in Ottawa to other areas of the country. Each province has its own management centre, which is tied to areas on the ground.

It is important for the public to know what happens in the case of an emergency.

Our first responders are our police officers and firefighters, who do an outstanding job. If there are emergencies in our communities, they respond first.

The second responders are our Canadian Forces. If an emergency is too large for either of those groups to deal with it properly, then we call in other assets from around the country. That is the internal coordinating mechanism we put forward. However, there are some challenges that need to be worked out and these are some of the things I hope the government will pursue. One is the issue of communications.

What we have seen in the case of hurricane Katrina and other instances, is when there is an emergency, particularly a big one, the civilians, who are victims, are the emergency workers as well. The first thing emergency workers will do is take care of their families, which speaks to the problem of communication.

When there is an emergency or an urgency, one of the first things to go south is the communication network. It falls apart. What we have tried to fast track is an internal communication network across our country that is independent of the existing communication networks. It is absolutely imperative that the government continues the work we did and fast track the need for a domestic, emergency communication network that can be deployed by our first and second responders in the case of an emergency.

I cannot overemphasize the need for this. We learned from Katrina and our Canadian Forces, in their incredible response to the situation in Louisiana. We found that the American response to Katrina was wanting. It was instructive not only for the Americans, but also for us to assess that situation and learn some lesson from it, and we did.

Having learned those lessons and identified those problems, it is important that we act upon them. I want to emphasize the absolute need for the government to invest in and implement, as soon as possible, an emergency coordinating communication network that will not fall apart in the case of an emergency.

I know in my province of British Columbia there is a great worry, naturally, about a tsunami or an earthquake. We know that some time within the next 100 years we will have a massive earthquake as the two plates on the west coast collide and grind against each other, which will cause a lot of problems. Therefore, we need to do a better job of coordinating those mechanisms.

The other thing the government ought to do is engage and upgrade the training for our firefighters, our police officers and our military in the area of HAZMAT, hazardous materials. Hazardous materials require a certain specific area of capabilities and equipment. It is very important for the government to make investments in the equipment and training that we started with respect to our firefighters, our police officers and our Canadian Forces.

One of the things the government could do that would be quite intelligent would be to utilize our reserves. When I was the parliamentary secretary to the minister of national defence, one thing I was working on was the possibility of utilizing our reserves as part of a second responder team. They would receive the training and equipment that would enable to come together in the communities and be the second responders in the case of an emergency that overwhelmed our police and firefighters.

It is also very important for the government, and our government had started this process, to look not only at the lessons learned from hurricane Katrina, but also at the lessons learned from the 9/11 report. The 9/11 report was very good at laying bare the challenges faced by the authorities in the United States in responding to the terrorist attack in New York. Analyzing and dissecting the 9/11 report would enable our authorities to take a good look at what would be required by government officials in implementing the urgent responses required.

On an international scale, I want to put in this plug right now for the minister responsible for CIDA. There is one problem that I have seen internationally, and it is that whenever there is a massive international emergency, we always start from square zero, so to speak. That is not necessary. CIDA ought to be working through the World Health Organization to establish an integrated mechanism of first responders. We would then have on a computer a listing of heavy lift equipment, emergency medical and military personnel, engineers and others, along with the assets, the perishable foods, tents for shelter, water, and water purification systems, everything that would be needed for a massive emergency. All of it should be established in a database.

Then, if there were an emergency on the west coast of British Columbia, for example, or an emergency in Asia Minor again, where there are always tragedies because of its location in an earthquake zone, rather than starting from square one and trying to identify all these assets, rather than trying to compile them from square zero, so to speak, we would be able to work and lead with the World Health Organization and our health action crisis group and Dr. Alwan.

We could establish an emergency response in which, with the click of a finger on a computer, we could identify those assets. That is the model we use in emergency medicine. There is absolutely no reason why we cannot take that micro-model and translate it into the international sphere. No one has done this before. Whether we are working in an emergency department where we have what is called the golden hour or in this, we know that same narrow window of time applies to international emergencies.

Canada could lead on something like this. If we worked with multilateral organizations and implemented the mechanism that I have suggested, we would be able to save a lot of lives. No one has done this before. It is a niche that our country can champion. It is a niche that we can adopt. It is one that we could use by tapping into the best and brightest minds in our country and others. Essentially, we could develop a coalition of the willing. It would be a true coalition of the willing, an emergency response group specifically developed to deal with emergency situations around the world.

A failure to do this would be unconscionable. We have seen time and time again that dealing with emergency situations in slow motion causes increased levels of mortality and morbidity. If a person is stuck in that kind of emergency situation, the fact is that the person's life can be saved or the illness or injury avoided. It is simply not right for someone to die in an emergency situation when we can do otherwise. I am suggesting to the government that we as a country, we as a Parliament, champion these solutions, which will go a long way to saving many lives.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot help but take exception to some of the comments that were made by the member for Cambridge. He questioned my integrity. He questioned where I was after the tsunami and where I was after the Pakistan earthquake.

In order to set the record straight, I was there, on both accounts, and certainly there after what happened in Lebanon. We do not need to take this lesson from the Conservatives. They botched that up by the numbers. The minister certainly had deaf ears. I remember calling into Lebanon, and absolutely nobody answered the phones in the Canadian embassy, and yet people were answering the phones in the American embassy.

In his estimate, how does my colleague from Victoria see the reaction, over the summertime, by the Canadian government in response to the crisis in Lebanon? Was it a complete botch-up? Or was it worth this House taking notice of?

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I know the personnel at the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Privy Council Office and CIDA worked exceptionally hard. People pulled 18 hour days and had very little sleep. We want to compliment the bureaucrats who often do not get any thanks but who in this case deserve enormous praise for the hard work they did.

What my colleague is referring to are the actions by the Minister of Foreign Affairs which were late. The elected officials in the government, unfortunately, let the department down in not exerting and exercising the leadership it should have had in the situation. I hope it learned a lesson.

My colleague worked very hard to try to convince the government to act with speed on this. While officials in foreign affairs and CIDA were doing their very best, there was an absence of leadership at the top. We hope the government has learned its lesson from this and that it will be able to implement some of the solutions it has heard here.

I implore the government to implement these solutions that I mentioned in my speech. They could save a lot of lives and it would be a niche area of capability that our country and the government could champion. At the end of the day we will save a lot of lives. I know we can do that with leadership.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

I declare the motion carried.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed)