Evidence of meeting #38 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was information.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Director General, Policy and Outreach, Emergency Management Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
—Public Safety is doing.
I don't have an exact date. You're looking for an exact date when that—
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Was it recently? Was it right after you got the money? When did you realize this?
Director General, Policy and Outreach, Emergency Management Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
I don't have the exact date.
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Clearly, you realize this is a problem.
I know you said that it's going to be this great system, but why would you now be working on a new model, an open-source model, if you think this model is going to be so effective?
Director General, Policy and Outreach, Emergency Management Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
What we are doing is that we have initiated and, particularly, funded a major project with the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council. That project is with academic partners and is advancing a made-in-Canada flood model that will be open source. That one will be available in 2029.
The data that will be available right now is data that is very important for Canadians to help them to make a decision about—
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
You're aiming for 2029 for this new version that will apparently be better. Will the existing portal stop in 2029?
Director General, Policy and Outreach, Emergency Management Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
It will be supplementary information. The information that will be available in the portal will always—
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Won't it just get more and more stale, year over year, though?
That's the whole problem here. It's a point-in-time set of data that does not take into account any sort of climatic changes or localized data. It is today's data—well, it's actually probably data from a couple of years ago. That's the point of this whole report.
It seems to me that this $11.5 million is blown. It's not even available to anybody. There's no timeline as to when it is actually going to be available, and you're already working on something because you realize this is a failed program.
Director General, Policy and Outreach, Emergency Management Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
It's not a failed program. What we are working on is to complement the work that is going to take place very soon.
We don't have a timeline because we are working with provinces and jurisdictions. We gave them an option to opt in or out. As soon as a jurisdiction opts in, we'll make their information available—
Conservative
Director General, Policy and Outreach, Emergency Management Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
It's not yet.
Conservative
Director General, Policy and Outreach, Emergency Management Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
They have actually been informed. We have been working with all jurisdictions across—
Conservative
Director General, Policy and Outreach, Emergency Management Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
This opt-in and opt-out option became available on April 27. The baseline version of the portal became—
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Did you launch it just because you knew this report was coming out?
Director General, Policy and Outreach, Emergency Management Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
No.
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
It's just a coincidence that they happened a week apart.
Director General, Policy and Outreach, Emergency Management Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
It just happened like that.
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Do you see why this all seems a little bit strange?
Somebody watching, a taxpayer like all of us, sees $11.5 million for data the commissioner says is placed in time and is not going to be effective in any sort of long term. You're trying to say that it's this amazing program, but it's not actually able to achieve any results. I can't go and search my address and find out if I'm on a flood plain. You're trying to tell me that you've already realized it's going to be a failure, so you've wisely moved on.
Why can't you just accept that the $11.5 million has likely been a waste of money and, seemingly, nobody's going to be held accountable, unless you can tell me that somebody is?
Director General, Policy and Outreach, Emergency Management Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
It's not the case. This tool is going to be a really great tool for Canadians.
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
This sounds like a lot of things the government tries to tell me: “It's going to be great in the future. Everything is just going to be awesome. Just believe me.”
Director General, Policy and Outreach, Emergency Management Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
It's going to be a great tool for Canadians.
