Health Committee on Sept. 28th, 2009

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Sorry, can I interrupt, Madam Chair?

Sorry, I'm talking about a very specific document where the federal government has developed a guideline in terms of occupational health and safety. Unfortunately, I think it's called “Occupational Health and Hygiene”, which needs to be changed, but I'm just wondering about the status of that document vis-à-vis your planning and discussions.

[Daphne Meredith]

There's an advisory and there are also frequently asked questions and answers put out by Health Canada.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Okay, I think I'm not getting—

[Daphne Meredith]

That's where we take our guidance from. That's the relevant guidance we use for federal employees.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

I think we need to ask these questions of someone else, because there's a bigger issue here in terms of guidelines for federal employees to ensure workplace health and safety that perhaps you're not able to deal with at this time.

Let me ask, is there a prioritization within departments or of functions within departments, so that if 30% or more employees are home sick, certain functions will take priority? How fast can you move at this point? If it hits tomorrow, who will ensure that all seniors get their cheques and that the veterans get their services and...?

[Daniel Lavoie]

Those are the critical services I was talking about in theory, and it has happened. When there was the power outage, departments relocated from one side of the river to the other. They kicked in their business continuity plan. If something happened today in downtown Ottawa and we needed to be functional tomorrow, the business continuity plan would allow us to do that.

People have alternate sites. They have a list of key people who must come in. They are identifying the key services they must deliver, and all the rest: “Well, sorry, it is not important today, because the critical services are those that have an impact on the safety, security, and economic well-being of Canadians and Canadian society, and that's what we're going to focus on.” So we are assessing those plans now. We're satisfied that 90% of them have what it takes.

I want to go back to your previous question.

As they develop those plans and assess those critical services, we're asking them if they have engaged their occupational health and safety committee in their departments. That's one question we're looking at, because that involves the union and the employees.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Have there been any trial runs in any departments?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Your time is up. In fact I've given you a little extra time, to be honest with you.

Mr. Brown.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

Thank you for your comments today.

Clearly the public service is prepared and has a plan. That's reassuring to hear. Your comments certainly give us confidence. But as Pat says, it's all about what we don't know and what could potentially happen that always has to be prepared for. It's the unknown.

There has been some reference to different agreements and plans with different provinces. Could you explain that a little? As an Ontario MP I'm interested in any Ontario-specific plans. Is there anything different with the public safety preparations for Ontario compared to the rest of the country?

[Daniel Lavoie]

I am sorry to disappoint you. The answer is no, and let me tell you why.

As I mentioned earlier, you cannot have a plan for every single type of incident that can come up, because keeping them up to date and making sure that you have the right plan, the right version, would be very cumbersome. What we have is a general approach that the federal government and the provinces share. I know you don't like jargon, but we call that an “all hazards” approach. No matter what the hazard is, we use the same steps.

We will involve different people. If it were in northern Ontario, we would not have our people in the downtown Toronto office as our main source of information. We will look in the field, and we may move people. We will work with the Ontario provincial emergency management office, and because we have the same basic structure, if they need to do logistics work and they think they will require some assistance from the federal government, we have a logistics group as well, so those two will work together. If there's a need to do some financial planning because it's a disaster that could be covered by the disaster financial assistance arrangement, we can work with them on that angle. All of that is defined within the federal government as the federal emergency response plan.

The plan describes how we work and some actions we take, but every day, 24/7, we have people who monitor what's happening in Canada. It may be simply a small train derailment, two trains with three cars and one is carrying some kind of chemical, and that is very quickly taken care of and there is no need for us to follow up. In two H1N1s that we're looking at, we are monitoring what's happening in the private sector. We're monitoring what's happening in the United States. We're monitoring what's happening in Europe. We're trying to gauge what impact it is going to have, and before it hits us our planning people start planning. That's the process we have. It's very dynamic. That's a word that was used before by your colleague. It is a very dynamic and wholesome approach.

You can bring in additional pieces and parts. In the government operations centre, if something happens and we need to bring in the RCMP, Transport Canada, HRSDC, Treasury Board Secretariat, and CBSA, we will do that. They will come and we will plan together. The response will be speeded up, because people will be talking to the right people at the right time with the right information.

That's how we do it.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

You mentioned that you are monitoring what's happening in the U.S. and Europe. I know Mr. Carrie mentioned that earlier in his questioning, comparing what's happening internationally. Could you provide an assessment of Canada's preparedness, compared to these other countries that you've been monitoring?

[Daniel Lavoie]

We are very well prepared. I think we are exceptionally well prepared. That doesn't mean we should be complacent, but we, meaning the collective group of government employees, have been working at this since 2002, taking our lead from the science of the Public Health Agency and also looking at other countries. We have a nice structure. We have an ability to think on our feet. We have an ability to respond quickly.

We never planned to be in the middle of a pandemic outbreak. All our planning was for an outbreak in Southeast Asia, because we were looking at avian flu being the starting strain. Then we were in the middle of H1N1—Mexico, United States, and Canada—and we adapted. During the spring, we were able to do whatever it took. We worked very closely with the borders. We worked with our health professionals. We worked with the United States. We worked with Mexico. We had a structure in place and it allowed us to move.

So am I confident that we are well prepared? Yes. Can we be better prepared? Absolutely, and every day that goes by makes us more prepared.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you very much.

I especially want to thank all of the witnesses for coming today. All of your insightful comments have been very useful to all of us.

I was just wondering about an earlier question that I don't think was answered. I think Ms. Wasylycia-Leis asked who specifically is in charge. Do you have a departmental security officer listing? Perhaps that could be distributed to the clerk for all members to just give us an idea of who's actually in those departments.

Is that possible?

[Daniel Lavoie]

We have a list of business continuity coordinators.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Okay, good.

[Daniel Lavoie]

I think that's probably the best tool, giving you who is in each department—

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Okay, thank you for that.

I'm going to suspend the meeting for five minutes to allow the cameras to leave. We will then go in camera for the business portion of our meeting.

Thank you so much.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Madam Chair, I thought we were having witnesses till 5:15. I think there's still time for another couple of questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Well, we could do that at the will of the committee, but at that time we will need the cameras to leave because we have to go in camera.

What is the will of the committee? Would you want to have a couple more questions, or would you like to suspend now?

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

No, that wasn't the question. The question was, could we keep going till 5:15?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Well, we'll be into our business part and—

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

No, no, you said 5:15. When we began this conversation, it was only 5:05. There were 10 more minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Dr. Bennett, I will spell out what I'm trying to say. We need five extra minutes because cameras are in here today. So we just need to suspend. What we can do, if you're willing to stay a little longer, is continue for five more minutes at the end of the meeting, because I don't think we can get all of our business done in 15 minutes.

What is the will of the committee? Would you like to continue and ask a couple of more questions until 5:15?

[Some hon. members]

Yes.