Health Committee on Sept. 28th, 2009

[Daniel Lavoie]

I'm going to start a little lower, and I'll get to me, okay?

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

Yes.

[Daniel Lavoie]

The principle of managing an emergency starts with the individual, okay? Each of us has a responsibility to be prepared for something.

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

Okay, so maybe I'd like to stop you just right there. In the pandemic planning and testing, are you doing audits to find that everybody in the Government of Canada knows what their job is, as the individual, and are you doing spot checks to stop people on the street and say, do you know what your job is in a pandemic? Those nurses in Garden River know exactly that every member of that community knows what their job will be if this gets bad. Does every employee in the Government of Canada know what their job will be?

[Daniel Lavoie]

I was trying to answer your first question, where you talked about the water treatment problem.

So the individual, if they need assistance, they go to the municipality—

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

No, this is on a federal reserve.

[Daniel Lavoie]

Then the province, then the federal government. On the reserve, it varies from province to province. The Department of Indian and Northern Affairs has different arrangements with different provinces. And I don't want to speak for them, but I can tell you that over the last few weeks—

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

I guess my question is, if that relationship isn't working, is it your job to make sure they get what they need?

[Daniel Lavoie]

In the end, yes. In the end, when there are no other options, when people don't know where to go, they will turn to us and we'll find a way.

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

Madam Meredith, a lot of us are concerned over what happened last week, where each province is going a different way in terms of sequencing effect, whether the seasonal flu's waiting till January, and what's going on. Ontario has decided that N95 masks are going to be important in terms of dealing with somebody with the flu. That's different from the federal recommendation.

What on earth are you doing to deal with all these discrepancies or the lack of consistency across this country, in terms of every federal employee having the right to be safe and get the vaccine and be properly protected?

[Daphne Meredith]

Thank you.

With respect to federal employees, we're counselling deputy heads of organizations to deal with their health and safety responsibilities for their departments based on science, based on what science is telling us.

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

But what if the province is interpreting the science differently? That's our problem.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Mrs. Davidson, you're next.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Again, I'd like to add my thanks to all of you for coming here today and answering our questions and helping us understand how this country is going to be prepared for a pandemic.

There are just a few things that I would like to say to start with, and then I'll get some comments from you.

In my mind, I don't think that anybody can ever be totally prepared for a pandemic. There are always outside factors that are going to affect the situation. I think you need the room within the plans to respond accordingly to whatever those outside factors may be. So I'd like you to comment on that, for one thing.

Then we've talked about the Emergency Management Act, where all federal institutions are required to have a business continuity plan, and that was in your remarks when you first started speaking. So there's a legislative requirement, then, to have the continuity plan. And is there a legislative or legal requirement for the table-top exercise or for the practice?

Could you comment on those things, please.

[Daniel Lavoie]

The overall approach to manage any incident we have is what we call the federal emergency response plan. We've developed this in talking with the national security types of organizations like CBSA, RCMP, and Transport, the organizations that deal with incidents that are criminal or about national security in the traditional sense.

Then there is national security as defined in the 2004 national security statement, which is broader. It includes health. It includes physical security. It includes all sorts of things that we don't think of at first as being elements of national security. But when you think of Canadians, they're part of the safety and security of Canadians. This approach works within the federal government. It works with the provinces. It works with the U.S. It works with Mexico. It has created a network that allows us to get information in and out very quickly to do planning, to do situational awareness, and to do logistics.

I'm going to give you the example of the water treatment systems. If there is a need to move water treatment systems across the country and it is too complex for a jurisdiction to handle, we have the ability to pool the expertise that exists across the federal government or internationally and make it happen. In the context of H1N1, we have refined this and have put a H1N1 lens, if you like, to this process to make sure it will be actively used and effective when we need it. That's how we would do it.

In terms of the legislative requirement to conduct this exercise, no, but as for ministers, each of them is accountable to prepare an emergency management plan in respect of the risks they have identified for their own area. We have told them many times that a pandemic is a risk that you have to plan for, so they know about it.

They also have to maintain tests and implement those plans, because you can have plans, but if they're not up to date and if they're not tested, they won't work. As well, they have the responsibility of conducting exercises and training in relation to those plans.

Overall, they have to exercise and test their business continuity plans, and we've been telling them that they need to do their pandemic plan annex as well. So the requirement is there, and I trust that ministers and deputy ministers, the deputy heads, have sufficient responsibility to take that seriously. I believe they do. The experience we have so far is that most departments are doing very well in their planning.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Does Public Safety work with the private sector at all to ensure business continuity?

[Daniel Lavoie]

Yes, in the spring, and actually over the summer as well. A working subgroup was created back in 2006 and it is part of the annex of the pandemic plan. A working group with the private sector was created. This working group has met. There are about 100 or so organizations. Public Safety co-chairs that committee with the Public Health Agency of Canada. There have been conference calls, exchanges of information, and sharing of guidelines in explaining to them where the information is available, where they can get it. They've asked questions.

We've had discussions with private sector organizations that are representing especially the small and medium-sized businesses, because the big ones have the energy, the power, and the money to get their plans. Small and medium-sized businesses have a much harder time. We focused on them. Should the situation change, we will certainly go back to them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you.

Now we'll go to Ms. Wasylycia-Leis.

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

Thank you very much.

Have the plans you've talked about been developed in consultation with the Public Service Alliance of Canada and any of the other unions involved with the federal civil service?

[Daniel Lavoie]

Do you mean each business continuity plan?

[Hélène Laurendeau]

The departmental plans would involve dialogue with the bargaining agents. I don't think we can say the plans have been co-developed with them, but they have been done in consultation with the people in the workplace and representatives in the local workplace.

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

In terms of front-line workers—nurses, doctors, prison guards, RCMP, armed forces, the workers within the federal jurisdiction who have anything remotely to do with front-line response—what directives have gone to each of those workforces within the federal civil service to ensure their health and safety?

[Daphne Meredith]

As mentioned, all of the deputy heads, whether of the RCMP or Canada Border Services Agency or HRSDC, are responsible for engaging their employees on how any potential increase in sickness could affect their work. That kind of discussion will cover considerations of which services are considered critical. As well, the conversation will cover how they deal with issues around illness in the workplace.

As you know, we're not seeing a huge increase in illness in the workplace, so these discussions are conditional right now in the sense that they're anticipating what-if situations. But they're covering off conversations about critical services, as well as how to deal with sick leave. The important advice going out to these groups, front line or otherwise, is: wash your hands. It's basic health/hygiene advice.

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

But I'm getting at a bigger issue here that my colleague Carolyn Bennett raised, which is the question of the national guidelines for protecting federal employees from this pandemic. I think what we're hearing, in fact, is that the national guidelines are much weaker than those of many provincial governments.

First of all, I'd like to know where that draft guideline is at. I'm assuming that every department with employees out in the field is looking at it. And are you looking at the feedback and starting to integrate that into your thinking, so we are in fact dealing with some of the scenarios Carolyn outlined in terms of respirators and masks and other protection that front-line workers should have?

[Daphne Meredith]

The guidance we're providing to our employees is, first of all, that we're assisting in providing for coherent guidance through—