Evidence of meeting #14 for Public Safety and National Security in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was municipalities.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Secretary General and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Red Cross
All I know is that the agreements were signed with the municipalities itself. We target a certain number of individuals.
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
Are you pleased with the role you have been given under the Quebec legislation as regards civil security?
Secretary General and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Red Cross
The answer is yes. I am very pleased with the role we have been given, it gives us important recognition.
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
Perhaps you know this better than me: do other provinces, to your knowledge, have such advanced legislation on the civil side?
Secretary General and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Red Cross
Not to my knowledge. At the moment, we are working with municipalities in other provinces, particularly Ontario, to do the same sort of thing. As far as I know, there is no similar legislation.
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
I certainly do not want to criticize you, Mr. Knight, but I am under the impression that you are completely ignoring the Civil Protection Act of Quebec, which was passed in 2001. Is that correct?
October 19th, 2006 / 9:50 a.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
We're not critical of any province or provincial framework, and Quebec typically has very advanced legislation, so we're absolutely not ignoring that. We're making the simple point that you should close the communications loop in this one area. It's really important for information to flow fully among all participants.
I want to underline that we completely respect Quebec jurisdiction. Everything we do in federally-funded programs has to occur under a federal-provincial agreement. There's no discussion about that. I'm talking about full and adequate flow of information. I think that closing this circle could be helpful.
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
There seems to be a difference between what you are proposing and what we have done in Quebec. In Quebec, we thought the basis should be the regional municipality rather than the municipality itself, because of the civil protection plan. Under this plan, an inventory is drawn up of the risks and resources. So a plan is applied to this and the Act provides at what point the provincial government must get involved, and so on. In the case of large cities, metropolitan areas form the bases of the plan. For example, Montreal — which is the largest city in Quebec —, its neighbour, Laval — which is the very third largest — and Longueuil — which is the fourth...
Chief Executive Officer, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
It used to be.
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
...make up a metropolitan area, and we think the civil protection plan must cover the metropolitan area.
I can see right away that you have no objection to that.
Chief Executive Officer, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
No, not at all, in fact I agree. Quebec is certainly very advanced in this area.
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
I had the impression that your criticisms with respect to the current system did not take into account the plans that we have prepared in Quebec, which provide for everything, but on a different territorial basis. We think it is more effective, particularly in rural regions, to operate on the basis of the regional municipalities, where the resources of both entities can help out the various municipalities.
Chief Executive Officer, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
If there was a misunderstanding, I want to say that in my world view,
The MRCs (regional municipalities) are municipalities
We look at an MRC as a municipality. We view the metropolitan community of Montreal as a municipal institution. In our view of the world, these are all municipal entities.
I understand the importance of MRCs very well, because many of the municipalities within them are extremely small. It's at the level of the MRC that you get enough critical mass of assets to be effective. I understand this, but in my view of the world, MRCs are municipalities. If that wasn't clear, I apologize.
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
We also expect that a number of neighbouring MRCs can work together to prepare their civil protection plan.
I would have no objection to having the rest of Canada benefits from a system like ours. My only concern in such a case would be to have some assurance that if federal funds were to be paid out to implement the system, they would be paid to Quebec without any regulations being involved. It is generally acknowledged that since the flood and the ice storm, we had to build something that would meet a greater need in the future.
Thank you.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Thank you. That will have to be it.
Are there any further comments on that?
Okay. Thank you, Mr. Ménard.
Chief Executive Officer, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
If you would allow me--
Chief Executive Officer, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
--I would just make one comment.
There was a bit of a problem with my notes. I did miss a page. I was going to mention Katrina, as well. If ever we had an example of the consequences of poor communication among governments, it was Katrina. It was extraordinary. In fact, we worked with our U.S. friends in the National League of Cities and with the Canadian Red Cross to help deploy Canadian resources, because we had that direct international tie. I use that as an example of why it's important that everyone is in all circles at all times.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Thank you.
I just have a question from the chair before I turn it over to the government. Do you feel that Bill C-12 would address the problem you observed during Katrina?
Chief Executive Officer, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
We don't think so. This is our one concern about Bill C-12. It inadequately recognizes the critical role of local governments--MRCs, counties. All forms of local government are not fully recognized. There's just the most fleeting of references, and it seems to us that there is an important communications need here.
When federal policies are being made, those policies are made very far from on-the-ground reality. Very few federal civil servants have any idea about municipal operations. In fact, their training has been that that's something they should not even think about, because it's clearly a provincial jurisdiction. We understand that.
But when dealing particularly with our large urban areas, the complexity of them is so great that it's important that the federal government be given some direct understanding of how things work on the ground at the local level. I think that's one of the benefits that some municipal participation--I mention this specific committee--would bring to the exercise. I think it would be useful to reflect this general point, perhaps in an informal way.
Thank you.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Okay. Thank you very much. Maybe we will deal with that more as we go along.
We'll go to Mr. Norlock, from the government side.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
Yes. Thank you very much.
Thirty years of policing in smaller-town Ontario was very much a part of my latter years in emergency planning with municipalities, and of course because of our relationship with the province of Ontario. Any experiences, from a policing perspective, where things went on and went awry, were usually a result of information not getting to the people it needed to get to. I understand what you are referring to with regard to information.
That having been said.... And I'm not that sensitive about criticism. As I said, those years gave me a pretty thick hide to criticism. In the absence of this current bill.... Is what was there before better? That's my first question, because if it was better, then we need to revisit things. If it wasn't better, does this bill start to get the job done? That's number one.
Second, yes, I suspect very strongly that your observations are correct with regard to the extreme sensitivity the Canadian federal government has to jurisdictional responsibilities. I liked your word “jealousies”. I have to be very sensitive also to the fact that I'm a member of government, so I guess I should not even have used that word. The fact is that we have a reality. But you are right when you say that the absolute first responsibility is to the welfare of the people of Canada.
I have to now go to the beginning. First, is it better than what was there?
The second question is for both of your organizations. Were you part of the initial planning of Bill C-12? In other words, were you consulted other than being here this morning? If you were, did you express at that time the concerns you've expressed here today?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Thank you very much.
Who would like to go first?
Mr. Knight.
Chief Executive Officer, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
With respect to your first question, as to whether it's better, the answer is yes, it's better.
I said at the outset that there's a clarity of the role of the federal minister that wasn't there before. It's more comprehensive. It is empowering. We view this as a positive step. We're not saying that the prior bill was better, at all. We support that aspect of the bill completely.
Were we consulted on the details of this bill? No. Generally, we were aware of it, but there was no formal process of any kind that we went through.