National Defence Committee on Oct. 6th, 2022

[Deryck Trehearne]

I think the Red Cross has a really important role to play. As I alluded to, this humanitarian workforce program that was set up in 2020 has taken a big step forward in terms of their capacity to help Canadians. They have always played an important role in Canada, with St. John Ambulance and others. We have search and rescue teams in Canada. There are a number of strategic partners there. They all have contributed to disaster response in Canada historically.

To answer the question directly, I think we've taken a big step forward in terms of that program and support to those NGOs to be able to respond. It has alleviated some of the burden off of the armed forces. Certainly during COVID, you could imagine that, in addition to vaccinators and things like that, when we were doing mass vaccination, health human resources, nurses and doctors were really in short supply. The Red Cross is a source for some of those resources. The CAF has very limited resources in that regard.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Okay—

[Deryck Trehearne]

We all know about the provincial and territorial challenges in the health care system, which we won't get into here.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to leave it there again.

Just as a point of clarification, on the 157 calls for CAF assistance, what was the period of time for those 157 calls?

[Deryck Trehearne]

That's since March 2020, sir.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

That's since March 2020, so we're talking about two and a half years.

[Deryck Trehearne]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Okay. Thank you.

Madame Normandin, please go ahead for six minutes.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Trehearne, thank you very much for your presentation.

You talked about the criteria you use to assess whether a municipality or a province is running out of resources, and you said that the CAF is always considered a source of last resort. You mentioned specifically the material and human resources available and other possible solutions. I imagine that with each request for assistance from the armed forces, you assess the response capacity of the municipalities and provinces.

As we've already heard, the number of extreme weather events is increasing due to climate change. How has the preparedness or response capacity of municipalities and provinces evolved? Has it improved in the last twenty years, for example? Is it worse? Is it the same? Their capacity to respond is another factor to consider when calling in the military.

[Deryck Trehearne]

Thank you. That is a great question.

The capacity of Canadian provinces, territories and municipalities to respond to emergencies has definitely evolved.

Certainly, we have very strong provinces in many cases. Quebec obviously has a very strong emergency management capability, and I think many municipalities have evolved significantly over the last, say, decade.

As I said, I think historically as Canadians we understood that there were floods and forest fires every year, though we had not really had the massive scale of things they saw in Florida, for instance, every year, or in the gulf, but I think that's changing. I think people understand. We sometimes refer to that as EM—emergency management—literacy and awareness, and I do think that many municipalities and in particular many provinces have come a long way in the last decade. I've been in this role for a little over three years, and we've seen, even through successive waves of COVID, over the last few years the engagement, the capacity and the literacy in these organizations to respond—and that affects their demands for federal assistance. All of that has significantly evolved in the last three years. People, I think, have really woken up to the fact of the challenge and have resourced it adequately.

We've had major events in which provinces have said, “No, it's fine. We have this under control. We don't need your help”, and that's the kind of thing we like to see. But I'll stop there.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much.

Earlier this week, Mr. Fadden suggested doing an inventory of material and human resources to determine the state of preparedness of the provinces and municipalities. The greater their capacity to respond to emergencies, the less likely they are to need assistance from the military.

What do you think of this idea of doing a comprehensive review of the response capacity and the resources available?

[Deryck Trehearne]

I think that is an excellent idea.

I do think the federal government—Public Safety and other departments—has been considering exactly that kind of work. We sometimes refer to that as the core Canadian capability list or perhaps initially a federal capability list. There is a need, I think, in Canada and there is work under way with Public Safety, which my colleagues can comment on—I'm not leading it—that is certainly looking at that issue, and doing so nationally, to understand the capabilities. I think one of the previous members asked about a list of who to call and about understanding exactly what capabilities are where in Canada. We know that federally. The CAF knows that intimately with their assets. However, I think the question on the table is about the total capability across Canada and whether it is adequate with respect to the trends we're seeing.

Thank you. That was a great question.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much.

When Mr. Fadden was asked who should be responsible for crisis management, he said it depends on the size of the crisis. It could be the municipality, the province or the federal government.

How would you answer that question?

[Deryck Trehearne]

I would answer exactly the same as Mr. Fadden. As I said before, this is a shared responsibility in Canada.

It's very Canadian. We have 13 provinces and territories, and then the federal government. The capabilities are very asymmetrical, as you can imagine. It really depends on the type of event.

There's a little bit of science and a little bit of art at the initial stages of an event to understand what supports are required and whether the province, the territory.... We saw significant flooding in the territories this summer. In many cases, they did not call on the federal government for support, but last year, they did. British Columbia had significant wildfires this year but had a third of the impacts they saw last year, when there was significant federal support, including the deployment of the armed forces.

It really depends on the situation. We all have our roles. It's difficult to say that one group should call all the shots in Canada. It's just not the constitutional structure we have.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

I only have a few seconds left, so I will try to be brief.

Given that calling in the military is such an expensive endeavour, would it not be appropriate to provide recurring and predictable funding to municipalities and provinces, for example, which are often the first to respond to situations on the ground?

[Deryck Trehearne]

That is an interesting idea.

I'm not an expert on the flow of social transfers to the provinces for these aspects. I'm not aware that there is a significant or a targeted emergency management fund or transfer to the provinces and territories every year. I assume that Finance Canada or others might be able to comment on that.

As I said, we do have programs where we help them both during and in the recovery mode in terms of funding the expenditures, but in terms of upfront deployment of funding so they can build capacity, I'm not sure.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Madame Normandin.

Ms. Mathyssen, you have six minutes.

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

Thank you so much.

I'm hoping to get a little clarification. We're talking a lot about the idea of inventory. Certainly, other members of this committee have touched on it, and you've been talking about it. There are the inventories that Mr. Fadden talked about on Tuesday and also doing an across-the-board inventory of capabilities.

There was also—and you could clarify this a bit—an emergency management strategy interim action plan, and there was a conversation about an inventory of governance. That hasn't happened yet, as far as I'm aware. Could you talk about how that compares? Also, if that plan is in place to do that inventory of governance, what's the timeline on that?

I think that's it for now.

[Deryck Trehearne]

Sure. The emergency management strategy does exist. That's a Public Safety-led strategy, and it works with the FPTs and ministers of the FPTs in terms of principles and the commitments we've made in Canada to advance the cause of preparedness and response—and mitigation, frankly. That means upfront investments in things such as infrastructure, etc., as many people have commented, no doubt.

What Mr. Fadden is talking about is what we would call.... It's a little farther down in detail in terms of a core Canadian capabilities list. A “capability” can be anything from procurement to coordination, like what I do. It could be the CAF. It can be planning. There are literally hundreds of capabilities that can be brought to bear. Firefighting, obviously, is a strength in Canada. On any given event, I think there are different levels of strategies there, if that helps clarify. There is an action plan under that emergency management strategy in Canada, which the provinces have committed to. I believe there are five or six priorities.

I don't know that there's a major governance review as part of that. I'm not sure what that might be alluding to, but certainly, internal to government, there is, federally, an EM—emergency management—transformation agenda, which Minister Blair is obviously supporting and leading. That's at the federal level. It has implications and engagement, obviously, with the provinces as well, due to the shared responsibilities that we continue to allude to.

There are a number of levels of strategies and work to do, I think, some of which are well ahead, and some of which are still mainly a concept. I hope that helps.

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

To go back to the humanitarian assistance workforce group you touched on, it has been together for two years and a bit. Is that correct?

[Deryck Trehearne]

That's correct.

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

Could you go into a bit more detail on it? Specifically, what has been learned in those last two years about how that goes forward? Ultimately, that's what this committee is talking a lot about: Is that the way forward? You said that this is a support to take the burden off of Canadian Armed Forces, as an example. However, my concern, of course, is that it's placed onto a voluntary sector, and then about what that means to Canadians.

Could you give me more information on that? What's been learned over those last couple of years with this force in place?

[Deryck Trehearne]

As I said, the humanitarian workforce program was essentially time-limited funding that was used to scale up the capacity of the Canadian Red Cross and other NGOs in Canada in order to respond to COVID initially, but clearly people have learned the lesson that this is an important capability to leverage and to support those NGOs to help in times of crisis, which the federal government has taken seriously. As I said, they have extended that funding.

In May of 2020, the government announced a commitment of $100 million to help the CRC and others meet increased demand due to COVID. An additional $70 million was added to that in December of 2020. Building on that, I think the fall economic statement in 2020 or 2021 offered another $150 million over two years to support these NGOs. That includes the CRC, of course, being national in reach, but also St. John Ambulance, the Salvation Army and the Search and Rescue Volunteer Association of Canada, known by its acronym of SARVAC.

About 100 million dollars' worth of projects have been done and approved under that program in the midst of the COVID response, which is also handled by Public Safety and me and my colleagues here.

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

Ultimately, one of my concerns, and what I'm trying to understand through this, is.... Let's take search and rescue as an example. There have been key issues in terms of resources, whether it's inventory or what have you, given to public servants within the roles of search and rescue, as in that specific example. By turning to a voluntary sector, it seems as though this may be downloading onto a non-governmental group and a way for the government to shift that responsibility.

[Deryck Trehearne]

Yes, I think that's an interesting question. The SARVAC group, for instance, is federally funded and they are located in the provinces. There is that partnership aspect to it. It's not really about downloading, in my view. There is a partnership in these shared accountabilities.

With the NGOs, the Red Cross funding and the humanitarian workforce funding was about not only response costs to a crisis of the moment, or whatever wave of COVID we were in, but also to build capacity, to create more capacity and to make sure that the NGOs were strengthened in terms of their ability to support. That was a net gain. That was not a zero-sum game where we downloaded it from the CAF to them. So—