Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm honoured to join you today from Treaty 6 territory.
My name is Josh Bowen. As was pointed out, I'm a faculty member in the disaster and emergency management program at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology. I'm also a member of the Government of Canada's disaster resilience and security advisory table, and I'm a veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces.
During my service, I was directly involved in five domestic disaster response operations. I finished my military career leading the military's disaster response planning in western Canada.
Tomorrow marks the sixth anniversary of the Fort McMurray wildfire. Eighty-eight thousand Canadians were evacuated from the community, and thousands lost their homes in the fire. I served as a senior CAF liaison officer to the province and coordinated CAF support during that disaster. It's because of my experience both in and out of uniform that I'm here today to discuss the need to build a civilian disaster response capability.
The CAF is meant to be our force of last resort, when there is no one else able to respond to the disaster. The CAF's integral communication, mobility, logistic sustainment and standing readiness forces across the country mean that the military can mount a significant response before the ink dries on a provincial request for assistance.
In the 19 years from 1990 to 2009, the CAF deployed on 33 domestic disaster response operations, responding to wildfires, floods, winter storms and major air disasters. In the 11 years from 2010 to 2021, the CAF deployed 38 times, eight of which were in 2020 and 2021. All 38 of those responses were related to weather events. That does not include the extensive CAF support to the pandemic response.
The CAF will always be ready to protect and defend Canadians when called upon, but as noted in the 2020 CAF operational and activities transition binder, the impacts of climate change “have already imposed added stress on Canadian Armed Forces resources, which will likely be called upon even more frequently and with less notice to assist with humanitarian and disaster responses”.
The current geopolitical situation demands the CAF's attention. As we roll into flood and wildfire season, that attention will again be divided as the CAF is called upon to support Canadians facing disasters. Climate change is only going to exacerbate the scale, scope and frequency of disasters here and around the world. We need an alternative to having the CAF occupy speed-dial spots one through nine. We need a civilian capability that can deploy when needed.
The good news is that there are proven options we can consider. Across the country, we have four heavy urban search and rescue teams. When a building collapses, we can respond and save lives. Alberta, as an example, is establishing incident management teams that leverage municipal and provincial employees to coordinate disaster responses when needed. The reality is that neither of these replaces the capabilities the CAF brings: primarily, organized and self-sustaining labour.
In every disaster that I've responded to, Canadians have come out to help in any way they can. Whether it was small communities bringing responders food to say “thank you” or people coming out to build sandbag walls to divert flood waters, Canadians want to help each other. Let's build on that.
Both Australia and Germany have volunteer-based disaster response capabilities spread across their countries that leverage the skill sets that civilian volunteers bring, augmented with a little specific training, and they can be called upon to support disaster response within a matter of hours.
In Canada, we leverage the capabilities of the Canadian Red Cross to coordinate emergency social services needs and provide support to disaster survivors and impacted communities. There are other non-profit organizations, such as Team Rubicon Canada, that leverage the skills that veterans, first responders and civilians bring to support communities in their times of need. Whether it's sifting through ashes following wildfires to recover valuables, clearing debris to open roads or coordinating disaster response operations, these organizations and others can and should be relied upon to support Canadians on their community's worst day.
The CAF is our force of last resort, yet we have become so accustomed to calling in the troops that we are not building the needed civilian capacity to respond. Our disaster NGO community in Canada is rich, and they can fill that gap.
Canada needs to build volunteer-based civilian capacities so that we do not consistently rely on our last-resort option.
Thank you.