Public Accounts Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2009

[William Baker]

Absolutely. The Department of Health and the Public Health Agency have had the lead on this. We've been a supporting organization dealing with pandemic readiness plans.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Go ahead, Ms. Crombie.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

I'm not going to waste time arguing with Mr. Shipley about how well this was delivered or not, but clearly most people have not received their inoculation. We ordered the vaccine three months after the rest of the world. Nonetheless--

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Please stick to the report. You have a certain amount of time to ask the witness questions.

I'd ask that the interruptions be limited, please, too.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

I'm sorry about the nature of the discussion. I really want to examine this from an emergency management perspective, which is what we're here to discuss.

So did Public Safety Canada meet with provinces and territories during the current H1N1 and assess how the government could have provided more leadership? And how often did these meetings take place, especially with respect to distribution from an emergency management perspective?

[William Baker]

As a point of clarification, the role of Public Safety Canada was to ensure that we had complete and thorough pandemic readiness plans for federal departments and institutions. They would be relevant in the event that the incidence of H1N1 was such that delivery of critical services in the country and the federal response was limited.

We developed plans. We did testing of those plans. We undertook a number of exercises to make sure that, for instance, in the event that 30% to 40% of the workforce was ill, you could still carry on critical government services.

That was our role. It's in respect of pandemic planning. And of course we have a facility to monitor events should that have occurred. Fortunately, as we speak, we have not found ourselves in that situation.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you.

My final question is on the lapsing of your budget, on your $58.5 million budget. A third of it--almost $20 million--lapsed in each of the past two years. Can you tell us why that was and what happened to the money? Does it go back into general revenue?

[William Baker]

Yes, I'll be pleased to respond to that.

There was indeed a lapse in 2008-09 of some $19 million on a base of $58.5 million. Some of that money was declared surplus at the beginning of the year in order to contribute to, effectively, a management reserve. This is a typical practice in government, a certain set-aside.

Some of the money went into a secure communications interoperability project, which was tied to a specific initiative. Some of it was indeed declared surplus. We also transferred some of the money for accommodations and support of emergency management regional operations, because, as members may be aware, we have a regional infrastructure in place. The final part of this was some of this went to help our provincial and municipal partners undertake exercises.

I can tell you that—

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

And there was also a lapse there, I noticed.

[William Baker]

There was indeed a lapse in that area. I can tell you that when we look at the spending pattern for 2009-10, we will not experience, by any means, the same lapse.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

So let me just get this clear. You had a $17 million budget for exercises in national safety management, and half of that wasn't spent in over three fiscal years. Then there was also the other lapse. There were two lapses of $20 million over two years? Are those two separate lapses that occurred?

[William Baker]

No, the exercises would be part of the overall budget of emergency management.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Part of the overall $20 million?

[William Baker]

That's correct.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Am I done?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

No, half a minute.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Okay, I'll keep going.

Why don't we talk about critical infrastructure. I saw it in your action plan. You've created a draft strategy. Can you discuss how you plan to protect critical infrastructure?

[William Baker]

Sure. We have indeed developed a draft strategy in concert with provinces and territories. It's quite well advanced.

In terms of the specifics around that, if you don't mind, I'll turn to my colleague, Miles Kirvan.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Do you want to address cyber-security while you're at it, in that case?

[William Baker]

Sure, I'd be pleased to address cyber-security right now and then turn it over to my colleague.

I'm really quite pleased with the progress the department has made over the last number of months on cyber-security. We are now at a point where we have been working with departments and agencies and have developed, I think, a very complete and comprehensive cyber-security strategy. We will soon be in a position to discuss this with the ministers affected and bring it forward to the government for consideration, but I'm quite confident that it will be in reasonably good shape.

Now, this is a strategy. The implementation of the measures that the government will have to take--any country has to take to respond to cyber-security--is not the type of thing that can be handled immediately. This will take a multi-year investment plan.

[Myles Kirvan, Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

With respect to the critical infrastructure strategy and action plan, the strategy itself and action plan are the product of a federal-provincial-territorial consensus, if I can put it that way. The Auditor General mentioned that it hasn't been through the final approval yet. That is, we think, very close at hand.

There was a meeting of deputy ministers in September where this was discussed and there was consensus there. So it's just actually going through a federal-provincial-territorial ministerial approval process at the moment. It was very much generated from there.

Among all governments it recognizes ten critical infrastructure sectors, such as energy and utilities, finance, food, and so on. These are all set out. It sets a way forward in terms of information sharing and information protection. This is quite important, because in the critical infrastructure area, when you're dealing with, let's say, utilities or certain other manufacturing sectors and so on, there's information that they also want to make sure is part of this enterprise. This is so they can protect some information that is inherent to the protection of their own business interests.

There's also an action plan. So there's a strategy together with the action plan going through an approval process now, and the strategy actually sets out the steps: what you're going to do in year one and what you will do in year two when you get to assessing the risks and running the exercises and making sure that it's working and functioning well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. Kirvan, and thank you, Ms. Crombie.

We're now going to go to you, Monsieur Roy, pour huit minutes.

[Jean-Yves Roy, Bloc, Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I must say that I am very concerned about the Auditor General's report. You have said that you agree with the recommendations, but I find that things have not progressed all that much. Basically, if you want to protect Canadians, you first have to identify the risks they might be facing. In today's world, there is a constant and significant change in the nature of those risks. For instance, I am thinking about the climate change we are experiencing, particularly in my region, where there are some 130 public sites, including roads and villages, that might be hit by flooding, etc.

What exactly have you done in terms of risk assessment? And I am not talking solely about physical risks, because I believe that prevention work also has to be done.

In terms of agriculture, you have spoken about food safety. Consider the issue of wheat farming. At some future date, climate change might disrupt a significant part of our country's grain production, and we might be seeing that happen very quickly, because our climate is now changing extremely quickly and we cannot foresee the impact of that over a 10- to 15-year period. We will have to deal with increasingly dangerous natural disasters. And I am not talking about breakdowns in information technology or one-off things like terrorism and cybercrime. I am talking about changes in our natural environment.

Allow me to give you a very concrete example. In a city like Toronto, let us suppose that temperatures remain extremely high for three or four days, a week even, as was recently the case. Have safe places been identified to accommodate people with respiratory problems? At one point, when temperatures were very high and smog alerts were in effect, shopping malls were used in the Montreal area. Can we assure Canadians that they will be effectively protected against the hazards arising from climate change? That is something of great concern to me.

I find the report unsettling. Indeed, it has been difficult for you to exercise leadership, and not only because of the problems you faced in recruiting staff. Is there cooperation among the departments concerned? And are you cooperating with the appropriate departments in all provinces as well as major cities such as Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver?

[William Baker]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, it is important to note that emergency management is a provincial jurisdiction, and that the federal government assumes certain responsibilities. We are working in close cooperation with other federal and provincial agencies and departments in order to identify all the risks that might affect the country. In my view, the cooperation is excellent. Since I started to work at Public Safety Canada, only a few weeks ago, I have found that there is a lot of support among the federal community with regard to emergency preparedness.

As for the example that you mentioned, I would, with your permission, Mr. Chair, ask my colleague Daniel Lavoie to respond.

[Daniel Lavoie, Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Emergency Management and National Security Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Thank you. I would like to come back to the issue of cooperation. As recommended by the Auditor General, the approval of the Federal Emergency Response Plan will significantly contribute to maximizing the support we can obtain. It is a very good recommendation, which we support and which will help us move forward.

We do not have major issues, but it is often better not to have any issues at all. You raised a number of examples earlier, including issues such as farming, erosion and flooding. A number of levers are pulled as part of the emergency management process. Municipalities are the first to react; followed by the provinces. There is much discussion with our provincial colleagues. In the last three years, we have re-established a committee that had lost its sense of direction, but is now up and running. I am referring to the FPT committee of senior officials responsible for emergency management.

We had a discussion no later than yesterday. We are cooperating on a long list of issues. A problem affecting one province will have an impact on its neighbour, because neighbouring provinces will help each other out in the event of major problems. Since this also affects the federal government, it is in our best interest to come up with solutions. A lot of work is being done in terms of prevention. We have done much prevention work with individuals. You might have seen the advertising campaign entitled “72 hours... Is your family prepared?”, which targets individual Canadians. First, we prepare individuals, then we deal with municipalities.

We can develop programs or a process to ensure that, in the event of an uncontrollable disaster, the citizens affected will have quick access to the appropriate services—whether provincial health care services, or services for small and medium enterprises provided by Industry Canada or assistance from HRSDC. We have come together to develop such a process.

I would like to come back to your example when you spoke about farming. We have an ongoing planning process with regard to evolving risks. A part of the 2007 Emergency Management Act clearly indicates that the Minister of Public Safety has specific responsibilities and that each government minister is responsible for analyzing and assessing the risks within their portfolio. Who better than the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food to inform us of the actual risks within that sector? He is also responsible for assessing the situation.

Therefore, the Auditor General recommended that we provide the department with more assistance so that it can effectively carry out its responsibilities.