Public Safety Committee on Nov. 9th, 2006

[Dr. Jim Young]

I was involved with calling the military in Ontario during the ice storm, and it turned out it was General Hillier, and again it worked very well. Mayor Mel called them during the snowstorm. I was not responsible for that one, and I don't want to take the blame for that one. But during the ice storm the military were extremely useful and they worked very closely with us.

A couple of key things in regard to this is that the military understand that their role is aid to the civilian authority, and they come to us and they ask what they could do. We choose the tasks, and then they use their logistical skills to carry them out.

The Canadian military, under what's called Canada Command, is enlarging that role and making it more available to provinces. That's a very good thing and it's a very positive thing, but it can't be totally relied on in the sense that if we fall as a country into the trap of saying, we have the military now and they've said they'll do this, we cannot count on them being there because they may be stretched thin in other places. They may be able to provide a lot of assistance, a moderate amount, or a very little, depending on what else is going on in the world.

So we ought not to fall into the trap of throwing all of our eggs in that basket, and the U.S. learned that during Katrina. They're pretty stretched right now in Iraq, so the amount of military assistance they could give was very appreciated and it was very important, but it wasn't as great as it might have been if there hadn't been a war in Iraq.

So we need to develop both, and I think in the future the role of the military in Canada will grow. I think it's a tremendous development, but we can't do it at the expense of maintaining municipal readiness, maintaining provincial readiness, and maintaining civilian federal readiness as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

One brief follow-up on this that occurs to me is that when you have a forest fire or some other such thing, sometimes one province can't manage. How do they call in other provinces? Do they go through the feds, or how does that work?

[Chuck Sanderson]

I can speak to that. There's an entity called the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, which is an entity that actually resides in Winnipeg. It's funded by provinces and territories, and it coordinates resources throughout Canada. If P.E.I. needs water bombers, they make a request into CIFFC, and through prearrangements, that group coordinates bringing the resources together and getting them to the province. In addition, they have MOUs with the United States and other countries as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Good. Thank you

I have one more person on my list, and I've asked members not to leave. We have one brief item of business to discuss before we go today.

Mr. Holland, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to follow up with some questions that were being asked by Mr. Comartin and Mrs. Fry with respect to municipalities, and I'll be specific in this.

I was on municipal council for seven years. I was acting mayor of a municipality that has a nuclear facility, the municipality of Pickering. I was also a member of the Canadian Association of Nuclear Host Communities. In my experience--and we had FCM come and testify before this committee--municipalities as the first responders are extremely critical in this process, and we're talking about emergency preparedness and also responding appropriately to emergencies, whether it's a public health crisis or a nuclear emergency. Municipalities are not only the first ones that respond, but they are the ones that I think really make the difference in those early hours as to whether or not we're going to be successful in responding to an emergency.

Therefore, the flaw I see in this bill, the thing that most concerns me, is the lack of recognition of municipalities in the bill, and more specifically, the lack of representation of municipalities on some of the committees that exist. I appreciate that municipalities are creatures of the provinces, but I would think that our understanding of municipalities has evolved as our nation has become one of large cities that are very complex and really true of levels of government in their own right.

In this regard I would be interested in your thoughts, particularly the CNSC's but also for you, Mr. Young, on the idea of including municipalities, through their broader agencies, in some of the committees, at the very least in this process to ensure that there's input. As an example, I would suggest the Canadian Association of Nuclear Host Communities would be an appropriate one perhaps to sit in on some of these committees, and there could be representation perhaps from FCM or representation from maybe some of the provincial or territorial associations.

So I would be interested in your thoughts on including some of these bodies, at least at the committee level, to ensure that their voices are heard, given their importance in this process.

[Dr. Jim Young]

Certainly, I completely agree with your assessment of the importance of municipalities and what they do. I don't think you'll find anybody in this field who disagrees, particularly with the model we use in this country. Making sure the municipal voice is there is very important. Traditionally that has been done, and that's the role of the province. And I'm not suggesting that it can't be improved.

I think the point you raise, then, from a practical point of view, is that what would need to be done is that the federal government would need to meet in particular with SOREM, which is our main contact group on emergency measures in the provinces. If there's agreement among all those people to include municipalities either as observers or as participants in the process, it's certainly an idea that can be considered. They certainly are involved. It tends to be more indirect right now, but I understand your point entirely.

[Ken Pereira]

This is a good suggestion, from our point of view, in terms of response to emergencies at nuclear facilities. The on-site aspects are looked at by CNSC, but once it's off-site, the jurisdiction is really a provincial jurisdiction, so the province has a lead in developing the strategies, the plans of action, to respond to the emergency. So certainly we would look to the province to lead the involvement of municipalities in the committees.

For our part, we engage with the provincial emergency management organizations to discuss strategies. In fact, I have a discussion with the Ontario emergency management organization chief in the weeks ahead to discuss some of the issues that are on the table before us today.

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

The last comment I'll make--and I'll make this more as a comment, because these are the last witnesses we're going to have on Bill C-12--is that I definitely appreciate everything that's been said, and I know that, again, municipalities are creatures of the province.

This is not to infringe upon jurisdiction, but when I was at the municipal level, and when I, for example, sat on the Canadian Association of Nuclear Host Communities, which is an association of municipalities, we often found that our voices would not be fully heard in terms of the resources we needed and the issues we were facing on the ground if we simply left it up to the provinces, because they didn't have the same degree of understanding. It was kind of like a broken telephone sometimes.

When we're talking about something as important as emergency preparedness, my thought is that including them at the table when there are national associations and there is provincial representation certainly couldn't hurt. I was wondering if you would say that, at the very least, it wouldn't be harmful to have them at the table participating in these committee processes so they could add their input. I can see a lot of benefits, but I can't really see any downside to including them at the table.

So what is the downside of including them at the table through the committee process and ensuring that their voices are heard?

[Ken Pereira]

I don't see any downside, and it's certainly something I'll discuss with our counterparts in the provincial emergency management organizations.

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

Thank you.

[Dr. Jim Young]

I'm not disputing the importance of it or that we can prove it, but the only downside I can think of, since you've asked the question, is that one of the criticisms of even federal-provincial relations now is that it takes so long to get anything done. That's because there's one federal government and 13 provincial entities. Add another five, six, or ten entities and you will slow down the process of getting agreement.

So I think you'd have to look at what their role is. Is their role there to be advisers and observers? Is their role there to be full participants? The more participants, the slower the process, and that's--

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

I'm not necessarily suggesting, and I don't think FCM suggested, that they'd be signatories to agreements, but rather that they would simply be at the table providing input through committee processes--

[Dr. Jim Young]

Yes, that's why I'm raising the issue as to what role they would play, because I think the more people you bring to the table, the longer it takes. It's regrettable, but that's human nature.

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

But if we were to say that they weren't signatories--in other words, they wouldn't have responsibility for signing off on anything but were simply being given the opportunity to give their input--then presumably that wouldn't slow things down other than that you'd have to listen to them, which hopefully you'd be doing anyway.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Mr. Sanderson, did you have a comment?

[Chuck Sanderson]

Yes, I'm not going to say whether they should or shouldn't be there. It's not my job to say whether they should be at the table. I'll just tell you the reality in Manitoba.

There are 198 municipalities. We have emergency plans that we create with the municipalities in 198 municipalities through JEPP, the joint emergency preparedness program, which is a funding relationship. Moneys go to the municipalities for equipment. The Association of Manitoba Municipalities is one of our key stakeholders as an EMO and as a large voice in the province of Manitoba for advancements in all things municipal, including emergency management. So I believe that the connectivity in the system is there.

Now, whether FCM should sit at a national table on emergency management I'll leave to somebody else. But I can say that the engagement of municipalities at the provincial level is real and substantive.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you.

Mr. Ménard, you had a brief question?

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Yes.

I guess you are aware that we are probably just as ignorant as the people who we represent. But we represent the public who, after all, pays taxes and who has concerns about the nuclear industry.

Do you believe we would be better able to answer the questions of our voters regarding security measures taken by the nuclear industry in Canada if we visited one of those stations?

If so, would you have any suggestions to make in order for us to become a little less ignorant about the security systems you talk about that will guarantee we will not have here an incident such as happened in Tchernobyl and Three Miles Island? I believe you realize that this public perception is the main obstacle to the development of nuclear power. Personally, I believe that if it were properly controlled, it would be the future of mankind because it is an infinite source of energy that is relatively clean compared to other sources being used.

[Gerry Frappier]

Thank you for this question.

You could certainly greatly increase your knowledge level by visiting a nuclear generating station. Yesterday or the day before, we organized a major tour for the media at Gentilly 2. It was part of public information sessions that are taking place yearly.

As I said, we could certainly provide you with better knowledge of some aspects of this industry through the education centres or the education material available. I do not know how to organize such a visit but I am sure that nuclear stations that have a visitor program would be very interested in having you.

However, if the Committee wants to organize a visit, I am not the right person to ask.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you.

A final question, Mr. MacKenzie.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

I have two questions. One is a comment.

Bill C-12 is a federal piece of legislation dealing with the federal government's responsibility. Municipalities deal with the provinces. It flows up, down, sideways, but it would be a very difficult situation for the federal government to be directly involved with the municipalities, given that the provinces have their domain and jurisdiction.

Is that a reasonable comment?

[Dr. Jim Young]

I sat in the provincial chair. I didn't like it very well when the federal government talked directly, and they used to quite commonly, with Toronto in particular. We were never too happy, because we felt we were left out of the loop. If side deals were made or too much discussion went on, it ruffled feathers, and not just with regard to emergency management but across government. That traditionally happens.

It's an issue that would have to be discussed very carefully with the provinces, because many of the provinces might be upset if it were viewed that this was going to lead to direct discussions between the federal government and municipalities.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Mr. Sanderson.

[Chuck Sanderson]

I would agree that your comment is a fair assessment, and I'm not talking constitutional anything, because that's not my bag.

As the EMO director, what I'm interested in is how the emergency management system works. You can get a lot of well-intentioned activity--and this has happened in Manitoba--where the federal government has come up with what it thinks is a very good idea and has gone to the municipality directly on an emergency management issue. All it has done is create confusion within the system, because emergency management is a four-pillared system. It only works if everybody knows who's who in the zoo and how it plays out.

There's some real value to keeping federal legislation talking about the federal perspective.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Thank you very much.

My last question deals again with the bill itself and the concern about the protection of information.

Dr. Young, I think you indicated some concerns about that area back in the SARS period. Are you satisfied that the bill has the right balance now—from your perspective, and also from the nuclear and provincial perspectives?