Evidence of meeting #81 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was provincial.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
Thank you, Madam Chair, and my thanks to our guests for being here today.
I have a few questions. First of all, I think the FireSmart program is heavily Alberta-centric. You mentioned it as well.
Patrick, is this something that's being used across the country, or is it fairly heavy in the west?
11:45 a.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Government Operations Centre, Emergency Management and Programs Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
You are right. To my knowledge, this is mostly in the west. FireSmart is a program that's in the context of an emergency management strategy for Canada. This is a program that works, and it's something we're considering expanding. My colleague can correct me, but we have around 200 indigenous communities that are really exposed and have a high risk of wildfires. FireSmart could be really helpful on that front. That is something we're looking into.
11:45 a.m.
Director General, Sector Operations Branch, Regional Operations Sector, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
We recognize it as a very good program. Just this year we've invested $6.9 million in various components of the Fire Smart program—education, training, getting rid of dry vegetation around communities, and interoperability between the community, the provincial government, and firefighters. To us it's a really good investment. It protects communities, reduces the risk of communities having to be evacuated, and all of the elements that entails, the economic costs and social costs and whatnot.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
You mentioned four areas where you look at prevention and these kinds of things. The measure of success in those four areas, to me, would mean no loss of life. If we look at some of the most recent events, such as the Fort McMurray fire or even those in B.C., we've been very successful in those things, so congratulations to everybody who's worked hard on it.
The breakdowns have been more at the individual level. I had an opportunity to tour the evacuation facilities in Prince George. One of the issues there was misinformation and the whole Twitter-sphere of social media. Is that going to be part of your analysis going forward?
11:45 a.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Government Operations Centre, Emergency Management and Programs Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
That's a great question, and I really am glad you're asking it.
I would say two things. The first is that awareness is a problem. While we identify and are working on these areas—and I'm not just talking about indigenous populations; I'm talking about non-indigenous populations as well—there is awareness that these are some things we need to focus on.
The second point is that we've been really investing a lot in recovery and rebuilding. Now we're turning our attention to building back better, for instance, and making sure we're investing in awareness. For example, FireSmart has a component teaching people to be aware that they should not put their wood close to their house. It's simple things like that.
Knowing about those risks is helping people to adapt and adopt behaviours to reduce potential risks down the road, but it's also helping to mitigate the costs of recovery. That's why, working on the emergency management strategy with all the provinces and territories, we're really focused on.... You mentioned the four pillars. We're focusing on the prevention and mitigation pillars. That's where we're going to get return on the investment, I believe.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
To the other folks, is the social media component going to be looked at in your review of how things were managed—in the B.C. situation, anyway? Is it going to be part of the plan going forward as well? I guess it's a marketing thing at the end of the day. In my opinion, the success was that there was no loss of life, yet there was some discontent in places and that was driven through social media.
11:50 a.m.
Director General, Sector Operations Branch, Regional Operations Sector, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
We'll see if social media comes up in terms of the one-on-one meetings with each of the communities, etc. It sounds like it would be worthwhile to raise and address it, but I'm not absolutely sure that this will be a theme that emerges.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to our panel.
My first question is on the division of power between different levels of government. The division of legislative authority in some regions over emergency management could foreseeably create barriers that impede the efficiency of emergency responders. Do firefighters and emergency response units that deal primarily with indigenous reserves especially have any barriers to proper staffing, adequate resources, or appropriate first response mechanisms?
11:50 a.m.
Director General, Sector Operations Branch, Regional Operations Sector, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
Are you asking in terms of barriers to working together, or interoperability, whether there are legislative barriers?
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON
Yes. Because of the division of authority, especially working within the indigenous communities, are you seeing any barriers?
11:50 a.m.
Director General, Sector Operations Branch, Regional Operations Sector, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
That would vary from region to region, but I don't see that there are any legal or policy barriers to that occurring, especially in areas where we have service agreements in place. The idea is to have those communities be interoperable with non-indigenous communities.
11:50 a.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Government Operations Centre, Emergency Management and Programs Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
Yes, please. One aspect you may want to consider is that provinces and territories have created this Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, which is pulling resources together and working together. With the B.C. wildfires, for instance, they were able to redirect some assets and firefighters to actually go to B.C. When you mention obstacles, this is something you should consider. The federal government is part of CIFFC, but having indigenous representatives also as part of CIFFC might help to overcome some of the barriers and ensure you have greater mobility on that.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON
INAC has negotiated agreements with the provinces and territories as part of the framework to appropriately allocate emergency services. As of January 2017 there were still some provinces and one territory without standing agreements. You mentioned that Manitoba doesn't have an agreement in place. What have been the barriers to establishing an agreement in a province like Manitoba? With the informal alternative agreements that are in place instead, how effective have they been?
11:50 a.m.
Director General, Sector Operations Branch, Regional Operations Sector, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
I think federal, provincial, and territorial ministers responsible for emergency management made a statement years ago that it was desirable to have these service agreements in place to clarify roles and responsibilities, so I think there's a recognition across the country that we need to have them. They're at various levels of negotiation. We're talking through what those services look like, how we put them around governance. I think things are progressing well. Some jurisdictions, for instance Ontario, have an emerging agreement. The principles in this agreement are extremely solid. We're speaking to the leadership in Ontario, the Chiefs of Ontario, for instance, who are appointing five chiefs to work with us to put around governance so we're identifying the right priorities and we have support in implementing the agreements.
There's change, and it takes a certain amount of time to get there. We use best practices. We learn from one jurisdiction to another, but there's a flavour within a jurisdiction. Some first nations organizations want to bring something to the table that may be different from elsewhere, and we try to take that into account. I think we'll get there eventually and have agreements in place in all areas. It may take a bit of time.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON
Do you have any idea about how far we are with agreements, for example with Ontario and Manitoba?
11:55 a.m.
Director General, Sector Operations Branch, Regional Operations Sector, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
If you like, I could go jurisdiction by jurisdiction and tell you where we are.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON
Maybe you could provide some supporting information for us.
11:55 a.m.
Director General, Sector Operations Branch, Regional Operations Sector, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
I would be more than pleased to do so.
