Public Safety Committee on Oct. 26th, 2006

[Jim Davis]

Yes.

[Jean-Guy Ouimet]

Yes.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

My friend talks frequently—and I understand from his perspective—about municipalities not being named in Bill C-12. First, I suspect your relationship with utilities, because you're both somewhat provincial, is at the provincial government level, which deals with municipalities; they're at the table with the provinces. You've read Bill C-12, and would you agree that the federal government is trying to pull together the provinces, as opposed to taking on an additional role of pulling together the municipalities into the same bill?

Maybe it's a confusing statement, but I guess what I'm saying is that Bill C-12's role is to work with the provinces. It's up to the provinces to work with the municipalities to bring them to the table, and then the table gets filled by all the partners.

[Francis Bradley]

The term in French is les champs de compétences; it's which level of government has authority over what things. I mentioned in my opening comments that on the electricity side this has been one of the difficulties we've had. While in the United States they're primarily federally regulated, here in Canada we're primarily provincially regulated, so that certainly adds a wrinkle.

The people around this table are far more knowledgeable than I am as to what level of government has authority over municipalities.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

I wasn't thinking so much about the authority, but I think Mr. Holland and I come from similar but different backgrounds. When the question was asked about the policing agencies, typically with the municipalities if your facility is in that municipality, you work with that municipality. In the big picture you work with the provincial people—but fair enough.

[Chris Price]

Yes, that's pretty much how it works.

I can speak only for Ontario, but if you take a look at the responsibility that Emergency Management Ontario has, and the requirement for municipalities to put their emergency plans in, as the transmitter and being that link between municipalities, we work very closely with municipalities. I don't see that at this point there's a problem with that, so I don't see Bill C-12 as hindering this at all.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Regarding my last question, when we talked about the sharing of information, my recollection is that Ontario Hydro belongs to CISO and CISC, and so you are directly connected to the police communities across the country.

[Chris Price]

Okay, Ontario Hydro actually is two companies—

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

What used to be, I guess.

[Chris Price]

Yes, the main two being Ontario Power Generation and Hydro One. At Hydro One, we are a member of CISO, and we are what they call a level two agency. We have participated in regular area and provincial briefings with the intelligence community, yes.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Those are my only questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Okay, thank you, Mr. MacKenzie.

Do you have a brief question yet, Mr. Carrier? Okay, go ahead.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Further to Mr. MacKenzie's comments, we're saying that each province establishes its own civil protection standards or act, in which you join.

We're talking about the federal institutions. Since we've just established that each province already has its emergency preparedness plan, in theory, all establishments, industries and institutions are part of that provincial plan, as are the federal institutions located in their area.

Do you think the bill fills a gap in participation or the preparation of security plans for our federal institutions in each of the provincial plans? Does it fill a gap or does that already exist? If there's a bill, surely it responds to a need, a lack or a gap.

[Francis Bradley]

I'm not certain that I'd be able to comment upon either the federal government's ability or how it develops and delivers its own protection. Recognize that as an industry we're responsible for our protection; the federal government needs to be responsible for its own protection.

As one of my colleagues said earlier, how it's coordinated concerns decisions made by people who have a much higher pay grade than I do.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Based on your experience, is the bill useful in clarifying security plans for federal institutions?

We're here to examine a bill that establishes a security plan for the federal institutions. Does it really respond to a need or a gap that you've previously identified?

[Francis Bradley]

It's not something we've looked at and have specifically identified. Mind you, it's not our responsibility to assess how effectively the federal government protects its own assets. Our specific concern on this piece of legislation, Bill C-12, is on the protection of the information.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

What Mr. Carrier is asking is, do you have any thoughts about Bill C-12, any suggestions, any amendments? If you're not prepared at this point to answer that, we can always make a written submission. You can think about this for a few days, and we would welcome any further input you would have. Would that be fair to say, Monsieur Carrier?

Okay, is there anything else? I've had an indication of another question by Mr. Norlock.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Sorry about that, but this is something that needs to be brought out.

I'm carrying on before I get to the question, Mr. Carrier's question. One of the purposes is not to have you folks here to look for something wrong, it's to ask you to look at the bill and, from your perspective, if you have some suggestions as to how this committee can improve it, whether it's information sharing or whether you see something in the way the government wants to coordinate, the ability to react to a situation that could have a pan-Canadian implication, which will in all probability affect your sector.

Please feel free to make those suggestions. I don't think we'll be so sensitive that we can't see them for what they are, and that's a genuine interest in making them better. Perhaps Mr. Davis might feel...and these questions are just general, because specifics relate to the bad guys. What plans do you have to thwart their evil doings, shall we say? Because these hearings are public, we need to assure people in a general way that the agencies we have at our disposal, both public and private, work in an integrated fashion in the interests of the people we all serve, our customers and our client base, as well as our constituents.

That having been said, in some of your installations that have the propensity for greater harm should something go wrong--and I'm thinking in particular of nuclear or nuclear-related industries, but it could be dams also, because we know there can be things happening there--would I be correct in saying that from a nuclear facility--and I know there was mention of Chernobyl, which won't happen in Canada because the CANDU reactors are much better--one of the issues to be concerned about not only involves the police but fire and some other issues?

When we were dealing with police and fire, Mr. Ménard asked why a policeman or fire protection personnel, or for that matter ambulance services, would want to rush into a potential problem. Quite frankly, Mr. Ménard, they would be prepared to jeopardize their safety. I can tell you that.

Fire, ambulance, and then the police are often first responders. Would you say that Ontario power generation and distribution keeps in constant contact with Emergency Preparedness planning? As for any changes they see and information they think needs to be passed on to the various agencies, do you feel there's an appropriate exchange of information with which to allow those public safety people to do their jobs? And if so, with what frequency does that occur? Then, if you feel free, maybe you could relate that to the rest of Canada.

[Francis Bradley]

If I may, at the beginning of your comments you asked us to make sure, if we have any changes to Bill C-12, that we propose them.

Things can always be improved, but specifically Bill C-12 has the one piece that we want. Perhaps members of this committee and other committees are not used to people coming and saying, “We're happy with what you put forward. Please pass it.” This is the second time this legislation has come forward. It has not yet passed. I hope it passes this time. That's my primary concern at this stage. We have a piece of legislation that I think is a good piece of legislation. I'm sorry if you were expecting us to come and complain to you. We didn't come to complain today; we came to thank you for moving it forward. It's been introduced now by two different governments, so I hope it has bipartisan support and it'll get through this time.

But as to specific issues on exchange of information and frequency....

[Jim Davis]

I will answer the three parts of your question, I hope, but before that I would reiterate what Mr. Bradley said, and I would add to it that I know the wheels sometimes turn slowly, but the more quickly the bill can be passed the better, because we will be able to then share information we can't share right now.

To answer your question, my area of expertise, again, is in the security area, not specifically emergency preparedness. Ontario Power Generation sees this area as important enough that we have staff who have those titles. I do collaborate with them on a frequent basis. I sometimes like to say that I speak to our manager of emergency preparedness more than I talk to my wife. I do know that he collaborates with other people in emergency preparedness.

I did mention drills earlier. We do drill on a frequent basis and, again, we use a lot of different scenarios. We use anything you could imagine and try to throw it into the drill so that our staff is prepared, and the emergency preparedness people who we do work with, including the police, fire, ambulance, and other emergency organizations in Ontario, are comfortable that when they are responding they know what their role is and we know what ours is.

I can't speak for right across Canada, but I do know there have been drills. Mr. Bradley mentioned drills earlier. These drills have happened in various locations in Canada and North America, as a matter of fact coordinated with the U.S. So I think we are in a far better situation than when I first started in the security business, probably more years ago than I want to admit. I do remember the last blackout, and I don't mean the one in 2003.

I believe we are in a much better situation right now, and yes, we do collaborate on a daily basis.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you, Mr. Norlock.

Seeing there are no further questioners, I think we will take your advice, adjourn this meeting, and get to work and try to pass this bill as soon as possible.

Do any of you have any further comments?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Not with respect to this item, but with respect to item two on the order of the day, committee business.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Mr. Holland, I will adjourn this part of the meeting and then we will move in camera. I would ask members of the committee to remain. We'll take a moment to go in camera and allow our witnesses to vacate the table.

Thank you, again, very much. If you have any further comments, you can always do that in writing. We'd welcome it.

This meeting is suspended for a moment.

[Proceedings continue in camera]