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.

Business of the House

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to confirm that the holiday season will be beginning in due course. In the meantime, we will continue with Bill C-37, the tax convention; Bill C-12, financial institutions; and Bill C-36, an act to amend the Canada Pension Plan and the Old Age Security Act.

Tomorrow we will begin the third reading of Bill C-28, budget tax measures.

We will continue next week with the business from this week, with the addition of Bill C-40, sales tax; Bill C-32, impaired driving; Bill C-33, technical income tax; Bill C-35, bail reform; and, of course, as is the tradition, as the member would know, it is great to get into a prebudget debate and that usually lasts about two days.

We have a busy agenda and I look forward to the cooperation of the hon. member. I am sure we will have further discussions on this.

Public Safety and National Security

[Garry Breitkreuz, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the fourth report of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security on Bill C-12, An Act to provide for emergency management and to amend and repeal certain Acts,

The emergency management act will allow the Government of Canada to improve its own preparedness for a coordinated response to emergencies. It will clarify the federal government's leadership role in coordinating a response to major emergencies. The emergency management act will enhance the Government of Canada's collaboration with provinces, territories and key stakeholders.

This bill will better protect Canada's critical infrastructure and will also protect the sharing of sensitive information between the private sector and government when it comes to emergency management.

I respectfully submit this report.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

I call this meeting to order.

This is meeting number 21, and we are here to go through Bill C-12, An Act to provide for emergency management and to amend and repeal certain Acts. We are doing the clause-by-clause consideration today.

I'd like to welcome the witnesses from the department to the committee. We have Suki Wong, the director for critical infrastructure policy; Peter Hill, the director general for emergency management policy; and Jacques Talbot and Richard Mungall, counsels for the justice department.

For those of you who may be new to the committee and going through clause-by-clause for the first time, we usually have witnesses from the department here to give us advice. They answer any questions we may have about the bill regarding the implications of any of the amendments.

Of course, the legislative clerk is here to answer any questions on procedure, and the research staff will also assist us in our deliberations.

During the clause-by-clause, the committee considers the clauses of the bill, as well as any proposed amendments, in the order they appear in the bill. An amendment is not before the committee until it has been moved by a member of the committee.

We can ask questions and discuss them. The committee will then vote on each amendment, on each clause, and finally on the title and the bill as a whole. Then we present the report to the House.

In today's case, we have three amendments, which have been translated and distributed. Since clause 1 is the short title of the bill, it is automatically postponed to the end of the discussion, according to Standing Order 75(1).

There are no amendments on clause 2. Does clause 2 carry?

(Clause 2 agreed to)

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

I have two questions. One is a comment.

Bill C-12 is a federal piece of legislation dealing with the federal government's responsibility. Municipalities deal with the provinces. It flows up, down, sideways, but it would be a very difficult situation for the federal government to be directly involved with the municipalities, given that the provinces have their domain and jurisdiction.

Is that a reasonable comment?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

The last comment I'll make--and I'll make this more as a comment, because these are the last witnesses we're going to have on Bill C-12--is that I definitely appreciate everything that's been said, and I know that, again, municipalities are creatures of the province.

This is not to infringe upon jurisdiction, but when I was at the municipal level, and when I, for example, sat on the Canadian Association of Nuclear Host Communities, which is an association of municipalities, we often found that our voices would not be fully heard in terms of the resources we needed and the issues we were facing on the ground if we simply left it up to the provinces, because they didn't have the same degree of understanding. It was kind of like a broken telephone sometimes.

When we're talking about something as important as emergency preparedness, my thought is that including them at the table when there are national associations and there is provincial representation certainly couldn't hurt. I was wondering if you would say that, at the very least, it wouldn't be harmful to have them at the table participating in these committee processes so they could add their input. I can see a lot of benefits, but I can't really see any downside to including them at the table.

So what is the downside of including them at the table through the committee process and ensuring that their voices are heard?

[Chuck Sanderson]

It's a really good question, because there are existing MOUs, but I think, as you heard just now, it's spotty. There isn't consistency to them. Quebec and the maritime provinces have a wonderful MOU with the New England states, but trying to replicate that process with contiguous states and provinces is not easy, because it seems to break down at the congressional approval level.

There may not be a panacea MOU, but we actually are looking at some leadership at the national level in creating just such an MOU that is overarching. In fact today, as we speak, without MOUs in place there is reciprocal assistance going on across that border--be it ambulances, firefighters, whatever--doing it for all the right reasons, but perhaps putting themselves at risk or in jeopardy of workers' compensation and things like that, should they be injured. We need to address that. Rather than 13 provinces and territories having individual MOUs with every state, we should be looking at one overarching MOU. This is not to say that the ones that Jim was referring to should be discarded, because they all add value. But I think there has to be a base level of understanding of mutual assistance across the border, and we're not there yet and we really need to get there.

I think Bill C-12 will help.

[Chuck Sanderson]

I'm not going to speak to the health system, because I'm not an expert on it, but when it comes to pandemics it's clear.... And that's why Bill C-12 is so important.

With things like pandemics and terrorism, all levels of government are going to have to be in sync simultaneously and seamlessly; there's no doubt about that. It was acceptable in the olden days that you could handle the occasional threat, which would mostly be a flood or something like that. You could almost do it with your eyes closed and one hand tied behind your back. But we're into a completely different scenario these days with pandemics.

So the importance of Bill C-12 is to make sure we're all on the same page.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

I guess that's the whole crux of Bill C-12, to provide that umbrella, if you will. I think that's what you're concurring with. It provides that umbrella for the federal government to work with the provinces, not to take over the role that's already there in the municipalities and the provinces. It's not intended to take away their authority or their responsibility at the first level.

Dr. Young, I know you have spent a great deal of time in the United States and dealt with authorities there. My sense is that we're a fair bit ahead of where the Americans are. When they talk about Katrina, there's a difference between the state and the federal government there and the provinces and the federal government here.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the people who are here in Manitoba.

My interest in this is Bill C-12, not the local issues particularly. What I'd like to know, particularly from Dr. Young and Mr. Sanderson, is whether this bill, as it's currently structured, gives you the tools to work with the federal government, and whether it gives you equally the tools or the comfort to know that we can work with our neighbours, both east and west, and more to the south.

[Chuck Sanderson]

Well, the Red River floodway is the poster child of mitigation in Canada. There is a lot of mitigation activity that can take place that isn't quite that grandiose. In fact, we've been working at the federal-provincial-territorial level to try to create a national disaster mitigation program and strategy.

Back to Bill C-12, somebody at the federal level needs to take the reins of that and make it a reality, because as we just heard, there are pieces of mitigation and preparedness, as in reinforcing existing schools built before building codes were changed, and that has to happen at a national level. A Bill C-12 mandate for PSEPC to drive a national disaster mitigation strategy is what we're looking for at the provincial level, so that when there's a national program on disaster mitigation, then the provinces and territories can cut in with their piece of the action.

[Chuck Sanderson]

May I make a comment on that?

It's a really interesting discussion that you're having, and it's focusing right now on one industry and a particular threat, basically. I would like to just say what I think this discussion is and how it relates to Bill C-12 and how it relates to a mandate of PSEPC.

There is a thing called critical infrastructure assurance out there. It's a new term, but basically there are approximately ten sectors out there that depend on each other, and we depend on them. When one sector goes down for some reason, other cascading effects happen in other sectors.

A lot of work needs to happen in this country in bringing sectoral leaders together to ensure that sectors that include such things as nuclear, which would probably be under the sector heading of utilities, are actually linked at the national level; that those leaders are sitting at a table, talking about assurances of protection, assurances of standards, those types of things.

There has to be an entity at the national level that brings this together, that has the weight and the mandate to do that. That's what provinces and territories are looking for in Bill C-12 through PSEPC. From a larger critical infrastructure sector perspective, the kinds of questions you're asking of the nuclear industry are specific and need to come to the table at a larger level. I think Bill C-12 has the capacity to do that, to put PSEPC in a leadership position to bring that together.

[Gerry Frappier]

As Mr. Pereira said, after September 11, the commission immediately put out an emergency order that required all the nuclear stations in class I facilities to upgrade their security in a significant way, including having a very significant armed presence there at all times and to increase perimeter security. So the example you're giving at Point Lepreau from the past would certainly not be the case now.

Part of the regulations does require that there is consultation with local authorities, and then part of our job, if you like, back here in Ottawa is to ensure that there is coordination with CSIS and RCMP, both in general for the overall framework and specifically for particular facilities.

I think Bill C-12 will enhance that ability of coordination, because again, as we've mentioned several times, it makes it much clearer that the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada, and therefore the department as well, has a role to ensure that overall coordination is in place. It specifically mentions the threat as far as terrorism goes.

I agree 100% with our colleagues from Manitoba that the big part here that everybody likes to focus on very quickly is the actual response, but the real work is done in the preparation phase, in mitigating the possibilities. We certainly expect PSEPC, when this bill passes, will continue to expand quite a bit on its capability to ensure that there's good coordination and planning before any incidents, including terrorism.

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

In terms of your analysis of Bill C-12, will it in any way enhance that consultation or that exchange of information with your commission?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Sure. Maybe I'll just set the stage for Mr. Sanderson on that.

I want to clarify that you're not making recommendations for changes to the bill as it stands now, and your comments are generally related to the second question I posed on what we should do immediately after passing Bill C-12 to ensure it remains effective.

So to Mr. Sanderson, do you have changes for the bill now, and what do you think are the most important steps to take after Bill C-12 is implemented?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

But you don't have any changes or recommendations to Bill C-12?