National Defence Committee on Oct. 6th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I want to call this meeting back to order.

There is always a danger in suspending because then everybody goes off and does whatever everybody else does.

Let me welcome to the committee, joining us in person—shocking event that it is—Ms. Eva Cohen, president of Civil Protection Youth Canada, and virtually, Lieutenant-Colonel (Retired) David Redman, former head of Alberta Emergency Management Agency.

Welcome to you both. You both have five minutes to make presentations.

Ms. Cohen, you have five minutes, please.

[Eva Cohen, President, Civil Protection Youth Canada, As an Individual]

I'm Eva Cohen. Before I moved to Canada back in 2003, I was a volunteer in Germany's Federal Agency for Technical Relief, the THW, a government organization that consists of 98% unpaid citizen volunteers and is located all across Germany at the local and regional level.

I have experienced first-hand the many benefits of a community-based civil protection approach that is grounded in citizen volunteers. For over 14 years, I have focused on highlighting the value that a Canadian version, modelled on the success of the THW, would bring to our society and how it could be done.

To start the process of changing the culture of preparedness and building capacity, I founded a non-profit social enterprise called Civil Protection Youth Canada.

There is no question that government needs to have a backup force to ensure adequate response to threats beyond everyday emergencies. We need to understand our risks, which capabilities are required to be prepared, and a structure to ensure readiness and rapid deployment of the needed capacity.

Even though our military is our only government tool to deploy in a disaster, it is not the armed forces' focus, and they are not adequately trained and equipped for all-hazards tasks. Using sophisticated military equipment for disaster response and recovery is expensive and not our best option. Instead of armoured vehicles, we need excavators, cranes, high-capacity pumps and other equipment—and the people trained to use them—to clear debris, provide emergency power and water, and repair damaged infrastructure.

Luckily, most of the required skills exist in our population and in the private sector. What is missing is the structure that enables government the same rapid response, boots on the ground and scalability as the armed forces but with a civil protection approach. The easiest solution often seems to be the one that builds on what we have. This is the rare occasion where the fastest and most affordable solution is to add something entirely new to what is missing and to provide the framework that mobilizes a completely untapped resource: Canadian citizen volunteers. We need an organization that would complement and integrate, not duplicate or take away from what we already have.

Even though we have seen an alarming increase in disasters over the years, none of our current stakeholders in disaster response have been able to address the need for our system to adapt with a robust and sustainable long-term vision, and now we don’t have the luxury of time. However, we are not alone in this situation.

I recommend that, instead of conducting lengthy inquiries and studies, we join forces with our international partners, Germany and the EU, and compare risks and capabilities. I ask the committee to please recommend to government that it make use of the standing offer of one of our closest allies, Germany, which, as a federation like Canada with jurisdiction of EM with states and municipalities, a vibrant NGO sector like ours and the military as the asset of last resort, has another tool for the government to rely on.

Seventy years of success and capacity building done in co-operation internationally is our shortcut, as we need to act now. The guiding principle is that government enables volunteers to be the backbone of the system and provides the long-term vision, structure and framework to ensure that this local, yet national, volunteer capacity is trained, certified, equipped and consistently integrated into the emergency response system.

This does not only guarantee efficient co-operation of all available assets; it shifts our completely reactive system to citizen-based proactive preparedness, readiness and resilience. A Canadian civil protection agency would provide the government with the operational arm that it is now missing.

Without adding an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy, it guarantees the focus, structure and standards needed for a national approach that connects all provinces, territories and indigenous communities, and enables them to provide their communities proactively with the capacity that is needed locally and regionally for rapid and prolonged response, all at a fraction of the cost of our current approach.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you very much. I appreciate it. You stayed within the five-minute timeline.

Colonel Redman, go ahead for five minutes, please.

[Lieutenant-Colonel, Retired) David Redman (Former Head of Emergency Management Alberta, As an Individual]

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me.

I would like to open my testimony by describing my two hats here today—first, as a retired soldier who served our country in peace, war and peacekeeping operations for 27 years; and second, as a retired emergency manager who served in operations locally, municipally, provincially, federally and internationally for 13 years.

First, I will offer, as was said in ancient times, that every country has an army—its own or somebody else's.

Let me start as a soldier. The role of the Canadian Armed Forces is, in my opinion, to protect the sovereignly of Canada, meet our commitments to the defence of North America, meet our commitments to NATO, support international security, carry out peacekeeping operations in support of the UN, and perform other tasks as assigned by the Government of Canada. These commitments mean we must have armed forces that are designed and trained to fight alone and with our allies on land, at sea and in the air.

A side benefit of a force like this is that it can provide aid to civil authorities and the civil power. Again, this is a benefit and not a primary or even a secondary goal of the Canadian Forces.

That said, the soldiers I commanded in my career were extremely proud to serve their fellow citizens in times of emergency, such as during the Red River floods in 1997 and the ice storm power outage in 1998.

Let me make three points. First, these actions take away from their primary role. Second, these actions drain time, resources and funding from their primary role—a role that has been extremely underfunded for decades. Third, these actions could normally be met far better by other agencies if we had resources committed to emergency management—which is a discipline that exists—in our country.

Here is a statement made by Paul Cellucci, the American ambassador to Canada after September 11, 2001, when I was personally briefing him in Alberta on critical infrastructure protection. He said, “Security trumps trade.” If we are seen as a parasite rather than as a partner to our allies in defence, then there will be immediate and long-term consequences.

With that, let me switch hats to being an emergency manager.

Nationally, Canada has a system called emergency management. You probably have not heard a lot about it—especially in this pandemic—because it has been ignored and, in some cases, silenced.

Emergency management has four functions: mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. I think we will talk about these four functions frequently today.

Emergency management has an all-hazards approach. There are natural hazards, including biological, geological and meteorological. There are also human-induced hazards, both non-intentional and intentional. We need to discuss this all-hazards approach more today since resources from one hazard can be used for other hazards. The process for each of those four functions is identical.

Emergency management works across all groupings in our country, from citizens to first responders, municipal government, provincial government, federal government and international agencies. I hope we discuss the roles of these organizations in detail today.

What about the private sector? Eighty-five per cent of critical infrastructure in Canada is owned, operated and assured to a great extent by the private sector.

Clearly all orders of government have a role to play in ensuring the operation of our critical infrastructure to ensure the safety and security of our citizens. The private sector plays an essential role in emergency management when linked to emergency management properly. The same is true for non-governmental organizations like the Salvation Army, the Red Cross, the Mennonite Disaster Service, ham radio operator clubs and many others, both paid and volunteer.

Let me sum up. Emergency management has long been neglected by our country. In fact, in 2008, the standing senate committee on emergency preparedness wrote a scathing, detailed report about it. If anything, Canada has gone backwards. Just ask the members of SOREM, the senior officials responsible for emergency management from all 13 of our provinces and territories.

I put it to you that is why today you are meeting to discuss—I believe, incorrectly—using the armed forces of Canada to do emergency management. The Canadian Armed Forces do have a role in emergencies but as the force of last resort.

Members of the committee, I stand ready to answer your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you.

This is shocking. I don't know what to do. Both witnesses stayed within their time limits.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

My goodness. We'll see whether the members can be as disciplined.

Madam Gallant, you have six minutes, please.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Through you, Mr. Chairman, my colleague Mr. Perkins, who got the numbers he quoted earlier straight from the premier, says that for hurricane Dorian, Nova Scotia got 700 troops within a week for just that province alone. In Fiona, they got just 300 for all of the Atlantic provinces.

Why do you think that is?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Who is your question for?

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

It's for Colonel Redman.

[LCol (Ret'd) David Redman]

I believe it's because.... In emergency management agencies, we have an EMO in every single province in our country. They work directly with their municipalities. As I'm sure you've heard before, when we see an emergency coming, there's an operational planning process, and the problem with something like a hurricane is that many of the volunteers you're going to use may have been directly impacted. We need to ensure that we have mutual aid agreements with our neighbouring provinces and territories—and we do—where those other provinces that aren't directly impacted can send volunteer groups or specific assets from one province to another.

During COVID, unfortunately, we developed a silo approach, where everybody was on their own and didn't ask anyone else for help, but I think emergency management has been structured—and continues to be structured—on mutual aid. Rather than constantly counting on the military, we should develop mutual aid agreements, which we have, with our other jurisdictions.

As well, I do believe, as I said before, that members of the Canadian Armed Forces are immediately deployable but should be removed as quickly as possible, and we should re-establish the organizations that exist within the province or territory.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Should Canada have a type of civilian corps of engineers?

[LCol (Ret'd) David Redman]

In my opinion, no. I believe that if we do mitigation properly at the provincial-territorial level across our country and fund mitigation properly—the first of the four functions—those types of activities belong within the purview of the provinces.

They work directly with the municipalities, and I want to make it clear that each province defines “municipality” in a different way. As a member of SOREM and in my briefings to the Council of the Federation in years gone by, we approached it differently for have provinces and have-not provinces. There is a role for the federal government to assist the provinces that aren't as strong or don't have the same resources. In my opinion, that's the role of the provinces and territories with assistance from the federal government.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

In your previous role, would you know if at this point in time Canada has an actual plan in place, a playbook, if you will, to coordinate an immediate response when a national disaster occurs, be it belligerent aggression or natural disaster?

[LCol (Ret'd) David Redman]

Absolutely. Public Safety Canada is responsible for that plan, and every province and territory in our country has a generic emergency management plan and then specific plans for specific hazards.

Remember how I talked about how we follow an all-hazards approach? There are subject matter agencies in each of our provinces and territories that look at the hazards for their specific province, such as a catastrophic earthquake in British Columbia and tornadoes in Alberta but not so much in other areas. Also, each province looks at fires, floods, tornadoes and terrorism across the all-hazards approach and tailors their capabilities to their particular province.

In Alberta, we required all 314 municipalities to also have an emergency plan that's tailored to the hazards in their municipality. The same is true in many provinces in Canada. With that, you then mitigate for that hazard list.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

In your experience, when you were at the provincial level, were there exercises together with the feds—regular tabletop or actual physical in-person exercises—to coordinate the efforts of both province and feds?

[LCol (Ret'd) David Redman]

Provincially, we held them routinely, annually, and it was very difficult at times to get OCIPEP, now Public Safety Canada, to participate in a meaningful way in those exercises. We always had a provincial representative in our POECs, both from DND and from Public Safety Canada, but for Public Safety Canada, after they closed the training school and after they stopped doing the regular annual exercise format to try to link elected officials into those exercises, we saw that completely collapse nationally.

I believe we need to reinstate that type of activity but recognize that it is still occurring at the provincial and municipal levels.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Okay.

In your estimation, based on what you saw happening in Alberta, was there sufficient coordination, a plan, to deal with the pandemic, or were we just flying by the seats of our pants federally?

[LCol (Ret'd) David Redman]

Ma'am, I could spend six hours with you on what happened in the pandemic. I wrote a position paper on it, “Canada's Deadly Response to COVID-19”. I believe emergency management principles were thrown out the window. Every province and territory in Canada had a written pandemic plan. The federal government had a written pandemic plan. None of them were utilized.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you.

Madam O'Connell, you have six minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Redman, I'm going to start with you.

You mentioned that, in your opinion, having troops on the ground in the natural disasters we're seeing should be done as quickly as possible, and pulling them out as quickly as possible. We heard from the last witness, if we're comparing numbers from Dorian to Fiona, that there may have been more boots on the ground, but they were there for less time.

With that in mind, are CAF troops on the ground the only measure of response and resources? If it's emergency planning, it's truly about filling gaps. Is a political model of only tracking the number of Canadian Armed Forces' boots on the ground really telling the whole picture of resources or where the best resources are being utilized?

[LCol (Ret'd) David Redman]

That's a very expansive question. Every performance indicator that's built has flaws.

However, let's start with the fact that there's a daily relationship between a province and the federal government when it comes to the use of the Canadian Armed Forces. The liaison officer sat right beside me in my operations centre in Alberta, and I would only call them when I needed them, and only for specifically why I needed them. In most cases, I never called them at all because I would always use the resources of the province first.

You have to understand that, when you're in a flood, you're probably not having a wildfire. The province has fire attack teams and many resources. I could take those and use them to build sandbags and dikes. I could use the private sector.

If the measure of success of the federal government to the provinces is how many armed forces' members are on the ground, we have the performance indicator wrong, because the federal government brings far more than just the armed forces of Canada. They can help the emergency management organization access provincial boundary types of resources from neighbouring provinces, if they're past the mutual aid agreement of the province next-door. They can bring someone from Quebec to help.

Remember, we have mutual aid agreements in many areas. To use wildfire, for example, there are wildfire attack teams in every province in Canada. There's a central coordinating agency that moves those fire attack teams across our country, without any involvement, until it gets past their capabilities. Ontario will send Alberta their fire attack teams, and Alberta will send them back to Ontario, when each of those provinces experiences that hazard at a different level.

Those types of coordinations exist in the silos, but are linked across all the silos of all the different hazards and all the government agencies.

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

Thank you very much for that comprehensive answer.

Ms. Cohen, I don't want to leave you out.

I'm curious. My colleague Ms. Mathyssen asked a question earlier this week to a witness about the idea of using the private sector.

Do you have experience in building in protections to ensure that the private sector is ready and available? You can do planning and prepare for natural disasters, but you don't always know exactly how they'll land or when they're going to start. How do you prepare so that they can handle it with relatively short notice? Two, how do you ensure that, in the time of crisis, there isn't gouging and there are protections in terms of costs?

We've heard lots of testimony about the benefits of the private sector. I have no issue with that. In a time of crisis you can go there, but is it cost-effective for taxpayers and can it get the job done? Do you have any experience or anything you want to add maybe to that line of questioning?

[Eva Cohen]

I appreciate the question very much, because it speaks to what I always try to explain and what we should understand: a whole-of-society approach. At the moment, everybody thinks everybody should do something. It refers to a system in which each sector needs to enable the other sector to play a role.

When we talk about the private sector, it doesn't necessarily mean using its business capacity. It means the role the private sector has in terms of enabling volunteers to be ready and available when needed. It entails co-operation between the government and the private sector with respect to having those volunteers ready. It also speaks to who the private sector is: the people who live in the communities. We forget that.

A crucial point of why the civil protection model in Germany works so well is that the government has an ability to tap into the expertise of the private sector on a voluntary basis. Naturally, people are invited to bring their expertise to the all-hazards picture as unpaid experts. Everybody else—those just looking for an exciting hobby—can decide to train in that capability and become an expert, because the government offers the training needed, provides the equipment needed and ensures certifications are in line with the chamber of commerce, so that, as a volunteer, you also have a return of investment and can use your training with this government organization in your private life. There needs to be incentives for all sides.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you.

Before I call on Ms. Normandin, colleagues, I want to use the last five minutes to deal with the subcommittee report. We're going to have five fewer minutes than you might have thought.

With that, we have Ms. Normandin for six minutes.