National Defence Committee on Oct. 4th, 2022

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

What I'm trying to determine is.... You have your public funding with donations, but you also get significant cost recovery, if you will, from the federal government.

When you send a bill to the government, however you do that, how do you determine what your expectation is for payment? How do you compare your organization's efficient use of taxpayers' dollars with other NGOs?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I suspect that you'll be able to answer one question or the other, but not both, in 45 seconds.

[Conrad Sauvé]

Very quickly, during COVID was the first time we got standing core funding to maintain a humanitarian workforce. This is $32 million in funding right now for the maintenance of our capacity, which includes some COVID response. This is new reality. It has been extended for a year. That was the first time. We did not have funding before in terms of a response that helped us with our standing capacity. This is a new reality.

Your other question is a good one, but it's a longer question in terms of—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

It's quite a thoughtful question, but it's still too long.

Mr. Robillard, you have three minutes.

[Yves Robillard, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Sauvé, how long would it take to set up and train a civilian organization that would have the same capacity and the same means as the Canadian Armed Forces have right now to respond to national emergencies?

[Conrad Sauvé]

I can't answer that because we haven't yet worked together to determine what risk level we want to respond to, what events we expect to see and, based on that, what capacity measures we need. For example, it was an extraordinary situation, but we were asked to replace the army in long-term care centres in a matter of months, so we did it quickly.

We are maintaining a certain capacity for future risks, but it's impossible to provide a specific answer to your question because it depends on the risk level we're going to respond to.

[Yves Robillard, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

When a domestic emergency situation arises, are NGO and government interventions duplicating each other?

How can we prevent that kind of thing from happening and make interventions as efficient as possible?

[Conrad Sauvé]

Right now, there is very good collaboration among all the organizations in Canada. I don't think that's the challenge. The challenge right now is that events are becoming more severe and more frequent, and that's stretching capacity to the breaking point.

What's much more relevant to this committee's work is understanding that the army is being deployed more often because it's the only tool we have to respond to emergencies, and that civil society's capacity to respond to these situations has not been reinforced.

[Yves Robillard, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Desilets, you have one minute.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for Mr. Botha. It's the same question I asked Mr. Sauvé.

Earlier, Mr. Fadden recommended setting up an independent commission of inquiry. What is your opinion on that?

Is that realistic? Is it relevant? Do you think it would be useful?

If not, what more can we do to plan and prepare for all that?

[Johanu Botha]

Thank you for the question.

I think if a commission shines greater light on this emergency management disaster response base, because it is a complex policy area and growing, then I think it can be only good. Everyone who works in my field would agree. I think the committee can appreciate that those kinds of bodies will probably not lead to short-term or medium-term solutions. I think more practically the kinds of suggestions that Mr. Sauvé has emphasized from a preparedness perspective, enhancing civilian emergency management capacity, are all very good ones that the provinces and the federal government should look at.

I would just caution, as I think I have throughout, not to throw out the baby with the bathwater, because there is a certain tier, a certain level of support, that we won't be able to replace that the military has.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Sauvé.

Ms. Mathyssen, you have one minute, please.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

We've talked a lot about the frequency of the need, the frequency of events that are occurring and the need for intervention. The Canadian Armed Forces have pay benefits, pensions, supports for their people. There are those boots on the ground. Obviously, there are so many incredible Canadians who are motivated to help their neighbours, to help people, but what are the biggest challenges when you're talking about that volunteer force? What are the stressors on them and how, when we're asking so much more of them in particular situations, do you mange that at a volunteer level?

[Conrad Sauvé]

There are stressors, but I think we've seen it in COVID-19 as well. Canadians want to help. The provinces that opened this up had tens of thousands of offers of Canadians who wanted to lend a hand. You can't organize that after an event; you have to organize that before, and train people. Just to balance it with a little bit of what I was saying before, I'm not saying that the military never should be used. I'm just saying this: Have we prepared properly and have we invested properly? We have never seen a lack of willingness of Canadians to want to help out in these situations, but how do you harness that help efficiently, prepare it and channel it properly? That has to be done before, and I think this is where there needs to be more investment.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Mathyssen.

We have Mr. Allison for three minutes.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Botha, you were talking about the different levels of emergency response, the coordination. You also talked about the fact that we do need the Canadian military. There's been some discussion about a FEMA-based type of organization. It's not always maybe the best, but it is an option.

Based on your research and what you've looked at in terms of chain of command and how we have multiple levels of government, what would be your recommendation, then, as we move forward? You did mention that's one of the benefits of the Canadian Armed Forces. They have that chain of command and it ties it all together.

In lieu of that, what would your recommendations be on how we tie all these things together—all the various levels of government?

[Johanu Botha]

Thank you so much for that.

In a nutshell, based on empirical evidence, I would strongly urge the committee not to consider a FEMA model in the Canadian context. The reason for that is that the key aspects of effective disaster response, whether that's information sharing, flexibility, support of each other, collective conflict resolution, clear roles and responsibilities, coordination, integration or trust amongst partners, all can be measured across disaster events. They have been measured. Our model, in the Canadian context, is not perfect, but we score higher on all those than our American counterparts, and a big part of that is the FEMA intrusion and blurring of lines of responsibility.

I would, in a nutshell, say, do not look there. The military is nice in the Canadian context because it augments but it does not come and take command and control. It's a resource that smooths out across the country, but it doesn't have this FEMA model of attempting to deploy into a region that it doesn't know as well as the provinces or the municipalities would.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

I have one minute. I don't know how you ask a question and get an answer in a minute here.

Mr. Fadden mentioned that, in terms of emergency response plans.... This is back to Mr. Botha, because this is what you've studied and what you've written on. Have we done as good a job as we could on emergency preparation plans and following through on those?

[Johanu Botha]

We haven't, but it might not be for the reason you think. We're very good a writing down detailed plans, especially at a provincial and a municipal level, but, as any good soldier will tell you, a plan never survives contact with the enemy.

As opposed to detailed plans that will identify any eventuality and then hope we have a response action that matches it, what we need are higher level plans that are exercised way more. This is at the municipal and the provincial level. We haven't done that very well. We're not very good at exercising our plans continuously. We're very good at writing them down; we have big tomes of them. I would say shorter plans exercised more frequently would be the way to go.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you.

Ms. O'Connell, you have three minutes.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Sauvé, because we didn't get to hear the last bit of your prepared remarks, did you have additional recommendations for this committee to consider that perhaps we didn't get to? Given the short amount of time, I wanted to at least give you the opportunity to put that on the record.

[Conrad Sauvé]

Thank you.

Yes, and again, I agree with my Manitoba colleague in terms of the necessity to bring the military in as a last resort, but really to focus on a civilian response capability. I'm not saying the Red Cross necessarily in all aspects. There are aspects we play in there, but again we're using the military as a last tool.

The last comment is very important as well. Again, we don't understand our risks. We don't prepare our response capability according to those risks and we don't exercise, so we don't maintain capacity from one event to another and we're unprepared. This is all part of a larger culture, and I think it's an important part of civil society to keep the military last.

If I may have a few minutes, I'd invite my colleague, Amy Avis, who has looked at different civil response systems in three countries, to say a few words.

[Amy Avis]

I would just offer briefly that I completely agree on the FEMA model. In addition to the command and control, there's also criticism around its inability to reach vulnerable populations and working in that regard.

When we look at the German model or some of the models in the EU, engaging the citizenry is so powerful, but there has to be a recognition of the investment in local capacities. We haven't seen that globally, that balance between engaging citizens, having a specialized workforce, local capacities and reaching those at-risk and vulnerable populations.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

I would quickly ask a question of Mr. Botha. What would be the best way to engage with provinces and territories? What do they need from the federal government that would start this conversation in terms of building that capacity and having that joint partnership?