Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for inviting me to brief you on Public Safety Canada's role in the federal response to the novel coronavirus event.
My name is Patrick Tanguy, and I am the assistant deputy minister of the emergency management and programs branch at Public Safety Canada. Before I speak specifically about the response to the coronavirus, I will take a few moments to situate the role of the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness when it comes to emergency management.
Enacted in 2007, the Emergency Management Act provides federal ministers with the responsibility to be prepared for emergencies in their respective departments and agencies. It also provides a coordination role for the Minister of Public Safety.
As you have probably heard, the Public Health Agency of Canada is leading the Government of Canada's response and working with federal, provincial and territorial governments to detect and respond to the spread of infectious diseases in Canada. My colleague in Global Affairs has set out the current situation in China; how GAC is helping Canadians on the ground, such as with consular services and call centres; and GAC's lead for the assisted return of Canadians.
Public Safety Canada has been engaged with these partners in other departments and agencies since the outbreak was first reported. Under the federal emergency response plan, the government operations centre, which is a Government of Canada asset housed in Public Safety Canada, supports response capacity and coordination during events of national interest.
On a day-to-day basis, the Government Operations Centre maintains an event team on standby 24-7. The centre also coordinates interdepartmental and multijurisdictional planning efforts to support coordination of the government response.
It also reinforces the principles of emergency management through planning, exercising and continuous improvement.
The government operations centre also facilitates the coordination of official requests for assistance that could come from federal departments and agencies and also from provinces and territories.
More recently, the Government Operations Centre coordinated the response to a request for assistance from the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador to deal with the snowstorm that hit the city of St. John's and surrounding areas.
How do we fulfill this support and coordination function? The government operations centre brings all partners into a common environment to harmonize collective actions and ensure consistent analysis and information fusion and sharing.
However, the Government Operations Centre does not make decisions for federal departments and agencies that are involved in responding to an event such as the one we are talking about.
Each ministry is responsible for emergency management in its area of competence.
In the case of the response to the coronavirus, a group of ADMs and those at other levels get together on a daily basis to ensure coordination in terms of planning and responses. The government operations centre is constantly receiving information, vetting it, determining its credibility and deciding if further reporting is required. The government operations centre will immediately report on an event that has the potential to require an integrated response by the federal government, as we've done in the past in the case of hurricane Dorian in Nova Scotia, last year's floods and other events.
Quite quickly, in the span of a few days, in fact, the Government Operations Centre elevated its response level significantly.
We have moved from level one, enhanced monitoring and reporting, to level two, risk assessment and planning, and now are at level three, which means that the government operations centre is leading the coordination of the federal response while working with the lead departments in the event: in this case, the Public Health Agency for the national response, and Global Affairs Canada in the case of the assisted return of Canadians from Wuhan.
We work with partners to ensure that plans are escalated and resources are readied for an interdepartmental response, including the use of the contact network with the various departmental operation centres and subject matter experts. Material is also prepared by the government operations centre to allow for informed decision-making by senior and elected officials.
Currently, the government operations centre is fully engaged in both planning and executing aspects of the assisted return of Canadians. This includes mapping out the repatriation process to ensure a cohesive response from all partners; confirming each organization's roles, authorities and responsibilities in the repatriation and addressing any gray areas of overlap; hosting all planning and senior-level calls and facilitating when appropriate the conversations between the relevant provinces and NGOs; coordinating federal activities consistent with the agreed-upon plan while ensuring that departmental policy, accountabilities and authorities are maintained by hosting the integrated interdepartmental response team at the GOC, as was done during Operation Syrian Refugees; and maintaining event updates on a regular basis on federal posture activities, providing consolidated situation awareness and senior-level briefing products, and disseminating them to key decision-makers and partners.
In addition to the role of the government operations centre, Public Safety communications has the leadership in the whole-of-government communications on the event, coordinating with our partners, the Public Health Agency, Global Affairs Canada, the Privy Council Office and other federal departments, to develop key effective messages from the Government of Canada to ensure calm and instill confidence in Canadians.
Again, Mr. Chair, thank you for the opportunity to provide some initial remarks. My colleague and I look forward to answering your questions to the best of our ability.