Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Feb. 8th, 2018

[Tina Saryeddine]

Ms. Jolibois, the nature of your question is really important. Chief Lazare and Chief Tracey, chiefs from aboriginal communities, from non-aboriginal communities, are all members of the CAFC if they choose to be.

I really appreciate the nature of your question, because, with your permission, we'll take it back. I think it speaks to the importance of organizations like the CAFC, the work that Chief Tracey, Chief Lazare, and their colleagues do to work together on issues of best practice.

Like you said earlier, Mr. Viersen, issues of fire are issues of fire. They are worsened in certain circumstances, in certain contexts. But we all have a responsibility to work together and speak together on it. When you asked the earlier question on how we bring standards of practice up, I'd love to take that back to the chiefs, with you, Chief Tracey, and Chief Lazare as well and just say that that question was raised and ask what we can do collectively.

Thank you for that.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

We're going to have to move the questioning over to MP Anandasangaree.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, panel, for joining us. I really want to acknowledge Kuujjuaq. I know as a committee, it was probably the first place we travelled earlier on, in 2016. It really put a lot of light into many of the challenges that are faced by indigenous communities. I appreciate the work, how hard it is to work in a very remote area. I think it puts a lot of things in perspective.

I want to pick up on a couple things that were mentioned earlier, particularly with respect to the indigenous fire marshal's office. Right now my understanding is that fire marshal offices are provincially mandated, and there are some exceptional powers that rest within the provincial fire marshal's office.

How do each one of you feel the indigenous fire marshal's office could be empowered, and what kind of specific investigative powers and powers of ordering certain things to be done.... What kind of specific powers do you envision the fire marshal's office to have?

I'm going to start with Craig and then Kellyann and the firefighters. I also want to make sure we have at least a minute and a half for a final question.

[Craig Lingard]

I would defer our comments to our colleagues. I think they've done better background and better preparation for this concept. We would welcome the opportunity to be able to establish that in our region, but knowing that they've done so much homework, preparation, study, and analysis of it, I would defer to them to speak.

[Sean Tracey]

I'll start, then.

Just this Monday, we were meeting with the Aboriginal Firefighters Association of Canada to address that exact question. One of the key things we identified as a requirement was that the minimum they should have in every province is the creation and sustaining of a public education program. That office then would be able to take a look at the bands or communities within their region; to look at getting out public education materials, if necessary working with them to adapt and deliver them; to work with developing capabilities for mavens in the community who would be the public safety experts to train and deliver these programs; to report back on fire statistics, which has been a problem for us; and to look at the training and development programs.

Also, then, look at the running and development of community risk-based models and collection of the data; help communities develop those community risk-based models, which then drives the funding that they are then able to get; and assist those communities in funding, talking to councils to ensure that the directed funding is appropriately applied for the services in those communities. They would report back on a national level to the indigenous fire marshal's office.

Those would be the key minimum components to look at that would be a level of service that's provided on a par with the average fire marshal's office, in my opinion.

[Kellyann Meloche]

From an emergency management standpoint, I would look at echoing what I said earlier, the same. What type of authority and powers does the fire marshal's office of Canada have? That's the same thing that we would need from our indigenous one.

Within our offices, prevention, mitigation, education, and driving those numbers down....

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Thank you.

I'm going to give my time to Mr. Amos.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you, and I've only got one question, so I'm happy to pass off the time to my other colleagues if they have further questions.

My question is for Mr. Tracey and for Ms. Meloche. We heard testimony two days ago, and it was repeated today, that statistics around fire incidents and more generally around the impact of fires in indigenous communities ceased to be collected. Today it was said it stopped around 2007, and they were citing HRSDC. Previous witnesses cited 2010, so maybe we need a bit of clarification. The main message was that there was a lack of data.

I wonder if Mr. Tracey could comment on the importance of collecting such data, and whether the failure to collect it puts communities at risk.

I would ask the same question directly to you, Ms. Meloche.

[Sean Tracey]

I am a past member of the Council of Canadian Fire Marshals and Commissioners, and we were responsible in our jurisdictions for collecting data and reporting that up to a national framework.

In about 2010, HRSDC at the time ceased collecting the data part and parcel because some of the provinces also began to fail to collect data within their provinces, so it created a gap in the national network. Since that time, CAFC and the Canadian Council of Fire Marshals and Fire Commissioners have been trying to re-create or have a national database, so it has been a problem nationally. I'm not sure if Tina wants to give us an update on where that stands, but CAFC has been working on that.

The 2007 CMHC report was the last report that I know specifically addressed aboriginal fire losses in our communities. Nothing that I have seen on a national front would give me any sort of pause for relief to think that this number and that fire loss trend has improved in any way whatsoever.

Yes, it's a problem. It causes us a problem trying to address things like the National Building Code. What are the changes? It's of critical importance. We do know anecdotally that the fire losses for structure fires have gone up proportionately, and NRC's reporting that. Houses are burning faster, and fires are more damaging than they've ever been because of the contents and of how inexpensively we build houses these days. That's a greater challenge that's not unique or specific to aboriginal communities.

[Kellyann Meloche]

Data and statistics are going to help us with future prevention programs. How can we measure the possibility of a prevention or education program's successes if we don't know the data from the start? From 2007 or 2010 until now, in the last eight years or so, how much has it improved, if any, and then what does that do in building codes, losses, lives lost, and the like? Statistics and data will help us to measure the education programs we have to push, where do we have to talk, what do we have to teach? Is it about the building codes or is it about getting a smoke detector in the home? That brings us knowledge.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

We're going to conclude our round of questioning with MP McLeod.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm going to pick up on the data issue also.

I think we all recognize that having good data helps do just as you said. I was involved in health care for many years, and I know that the collection of data became an issue because many first nations communities were very perturbed about providing that information to the government. It sounds as if there were issues with the provinces, so there was this sense of not wanting to give us this data, because it sounds as if the government is saying it was a failure. This was a voluntary mechanism. Is anyone suggesting that to provide this data should be mandatory, or should communities have options around the provision of the data?

As I say, in the health care area that I represented a lot of important data were not being collected anymore at the desire of the first nations community. So first, should it be mandatory? Second, would the indigenous fire marshal issue support that particular...? Would there perhaps be more voluntary provision because there would be greater confidence?

[Kellyann Meloche]

I would wager that if there is an indigenous fire marshal's office, which is a great idea, our communities would be more likely to share that information with the office. It's building trust. Any time you're asking for numbers or information or anything like that from our communities, it's scary because we're wondering how you're going to use it against us. It's silly, but it's more how can we work together and how can we build our programs? If we're talking nation to nation or indigenous to indigenous, it's more willing to be shareable.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

It sounds as if Tina wants to interject.

[Tina Saryeddine]

Yes, I'd like to follow up on deputy fire chief Tracey's solution to the national fire information database, and what we learned from that. This database has over 10 years of data about fire incidences and injuries in our country. It was an effort to collect data from across the country, and we learned the issues of data collection are not unique to the aboriginal communities. Many provinces had a lot of difficulty providing data. That also challenges us to ask how much data you need before you know there's a problem. I do see the importance of an evidence-informed approach, of data collection. We're extraordinarily grateful to Public Safety and DRDC for funding this initiative. I invite you to go to nfidcanada.ca to see the results of this project. But it's a cautionary tale. Collecting data from across the provinces in different ways is not cheap, it's not fast, it's not easy. It's a work in progress, we're evolving, and I think we probably know about some of the issues with or without the data, some of the education issues, some of the smoke alarm issues, etc. Thank you.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Chair—

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Sorry, I agreed to share my time.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Just for my own benefit, I'm not really familiar.... I worked with the fire chief in my hometown. He was a volunteer fire chief up in northern Alberta. I don't know much beyond my own town as to how a fire marshal works. You mentioned there was a provincial fire marshal. Is there a Canadian fire marshal?

[Sean Tracey]

No. The closest equivalent that we have in any federal department is the Canadian Forces fire marshal, who is the fire marshal for the Department of National Defence and addresses all of their properties, their facilities, and their training.

One of the issues we currently have is that there is no federal fire marshal, as such. That is a current gap, so nobody is looking at individual federal facilities or buildings. It's the responsibility of each of the individual departments, and the heads of those departments are responsible for fire protection issues within those.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Okay, so when we're calling for an indigenous fire marshal, a Canadian national fire marshal might be part of that conversation.

[Sean Tracey]

I'll let Tina address that one.

[Tina Saryeddine]

If I could just add to that, Chief Tracey, in fact, the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs is on the record, this year in our pre-budget submission and in many of our policy documents, asking for consideration of a national fire adviser because of the number of issues that affect fire.

There are issues related to aboriginals, but within the common issues in non-aboriginal communities are mental health issues, building code issues, and issues related to transportation, trains, and transportation of dangerous goods.

All of these issues, including the question that was raised earlier about how to level the playing field between aboriginal and non-aboriginal communities, would probably be well served by consideration of a national fire advisory role.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

That concludes our session. It's a good place to stop.

Thanks, Tina.

Thank you to everybody for your participation.

That concludes our public hearings on the study. We'll now prepare the report.

The meeting is adjourned.