Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to engage in the debate today on the bill dealing with emergencies and the federal response to emergencies.
The bill actually replicates a bill that was introduced into the House in the last Parliament, with a couple of tweaks here and there I guess, but the bill is recognized as being needed. Those needs arise from the evolution of public awareness and government awareness that the prospect of significant emergencies and disasters, and perhaps exacerbated by the possibility of a terrorist incident that would be the equivalent of a disaster, that requires the federal government, as well as the provinces and municipalities, to be ready, able and willing to deal with these types of emergencies. They evolve out of climate change, natural disasters, just bad things that can happen in the world today.
The world media certainly make us aware of all of those things. We would like to think that Canada will be lucky and avoid the huge earthquake, the meteorite from space that drops the huge flood, the terrible hurricane and tornado, but these things do happen. It is worth noting that most of these events, when they do occur, would normally be seen as falling within provincial jurisdiction. I will address that later in my remarks because there is a practical and legal issue that arises from the bill.
However, the bill would allow the federal government to refocus and better coordinate the organization of its response to emergencies. Perhaps we can all note that there is arguably a difference between what is called an emergency and what we might regard as a security related incident. They are not always the same. Most of what the bill would deal with is emergencies involving natural disasters with some component of a man-made contribution in it.
First, I want to note the reference to the leadership and mandate of the public security emergency preparedness minister. This is a concept that the government has been slow to get to. The predecessor of the PSEP minister was the solicitor general and over time it became apparent that some federal minister had to take responsibility for a federal government response to emergencies.
In the old days, I think Canadians felt that the minister of national defence could probably handle that. Canadians have always had a feeling that its armed forces were capable of rendering assistance wherever it was really needed. The armed forces have jumped in from the beginning of Canada to assist Canadians, as have other government institutions. However, as with other things in life, emergencies and natural disasters have evolved and become more complex I suppose, and we simply needed a government minister, aside from the Department of National Defence, who could coordinate these things. Now it would be the federal minister of public safety and emergency preparedness. That is one thing the bill does.
The second thing worth noting is the imposition of a protection for private information of third parties in the hands of government. That information would have been supplied to government as part of the preparation of an emergency management plan. It really is, in my view, quite reasonable that third parties who supply that information to government to assist in the creation of an emergency management plan should have that information protected within government and not have it accessible through the Access to Information Act. That is quite a reasonable proposal and I am not aware of any difficulties in law with that.
The third thing I would like to point out relates to something I mentioned earlier. There is a provision in the bill, I believe it is clause 7(c), that allows the federal government by regulation to declare a provincial emergency to be of concern to the federal government. I take it from this that it is the intention of the bill to put a federal thumb print on what is a provincial emergency. I think the committee that looks at this bill will need to ask whether that particular provision is relying on the peace, order and good government section of our Constitution, section 91. I think it does.
Clause 7(c) involving the regulations is also related to clause 6(3) of the bill. Clause 6(3) states:
A government institution may not respond to a provincial emergency unless the government of the province requests assistance....
That seems to say that the federal government will not get itself into a provincial emergency. The wording is important because it refers to a provincial emergency. However, if the federal government, in which legislation has paramountcy to provincial legislation, has a regulation that says a provincial matter is of concern to the federal government, that matter may cease to be simply a provincial emergency and may become a matter of concern to the federal government. This is a constitutional issue and I am not too sure that the statute has made it clear in its wording and I am not too sure that we here have taken note of that implication.
The concept of the federal government declaring a provincial emergency to be of concern to the federal government should be distinguished from what we normally refer to here as aid to the civil power by the armed forces. If there is a problem, the province requests the federal government for assistance from the armed forces and the armed forces are made available to the provincial jurisdiction. That is a separate mechanism and concept from what we are dealing with here.
I suggest that the bill does create something new that should be addressed and clarified if necessary because as I stand here today I suppose I am not prepared to say that it is real clear from the statute that the intent of clause 7(c) as it interrelates with clause 6(3) is exactly the way I have described it. That has to be clarified.
What are some other issues in the bill? Clause 5 raises the matter of dealing with emergencies involving the United States of America. We have a long common border. We probably have a border with Denmark and with Russia but we certainly have enough border interface with the United States to make this a matter of concern. It does have a place in legislation. It is a picky issue perhaps but I think I should note it for the record.
Clause 5 would authorize the development of what is called a joint emergency management plan. The other clauses of the bill deal with developing emergency management plans. This clause refers to a joint emergency management plan, which is okay, but it does not say with whom the joint plan should be arranged. It just says with United States authorities. It does not mention whether it should be with state jurisdictions in the United States, municipal jurisdictions or U.S. federal agencies. It just talks about United States authorities. That may be a concept that is a little too naive for our purposes here in doing legislation. This can be looked at later as well.
However, there is another clause of the bill that deals with the making of regulations and that is on the issue of whether we have any statutory jurisdiction in the United States of America. Of course we do not. That would involve an extraterritorial application of our law. However, it would not prevent us from developing an emergency management plan, but does it involve Canada spending money, resourcing, in the United States?
Clause 7 of the bill creates the authority to make regulations and it seems to indicate that we anticipate spending money in the United States of America. For example, subclause 7(b) says regulations “respecting the use of federal civil resources in response to civil emergencies”. Does that include assistance in response to U.S.A. emergencies? If we do respond to an emergency management plan that we have developed with the U.S.A., are we just talking about the border, or are we talking Laredo, Texas on the border with Mexico? Are we talking about an emergency similar to the hurricane damage in New Orleans? Are we talking about a tsunami in Hawaii? It is not clear if there are any constraints on this extraterritorial spending of resources.
In addition, subclause 7(a) says that the government may make orders or regulations “respecting the preparation, maintenance, testing and implementation of emergency management plans”. Emergency management plans are referred to in the bill, but there is the second type of emergency management plan called the joint emergency management plan, found in clause 5, dealing with the U.S.A.
I am suggesting, on a very technical basis, that if it is intended that the minister or the governor in council make regulations about joint emergency management plans, that should also be set out in the statute. The way it is worded in the bill it is evidently a separate concept.
This too can be dealt with, if necessary, at the committee level. I am sure members would like to debate that one for 5 or 10 minutes. It is better to fix these problems now than to have a lack of clarity and have issues arise later with our American friends, or our Canadian provincial friends or our municipalities. Also, we never know when the official opposition will raise an objection to the government's actions.
Those are most of my comments on the bill.
There is a related matter of dealing with our border relations with the U.S.A.. I want to make note of that because it may have implications for the bill.
Our joint efforts with the United States include border security, intelligence gathering and counterterrorism operations. This does not always happen at the border. I would point out that although we have integrated border enforcement teams at work now through much of the Canada-U.S. border system, and those integrated border enforcement teams operate very well, do a good job and involve our police, their police, our agencies and their agencies, we also have integrated national security enforcement teams. They do not operate at the border. They operate in Canada's larger cities.
Those joint operations bring together the RCMP, CSIS, municipal and provincial police, some Canadian ministries and American representatives from the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the U.S. Border Patrol and generally now the Department of Homeland Security. These institutions and liaison people are at work in Canada, which raises issues. Just as in emergency preparedness and resourcing of cross-border emergencies, it raises issues about efficacy of spending and, in some cases, issues involving scrutiny for civil liberties.
We have not yet in the House nailed down, with precision, how we will take steps to ensure that these new constructs, put together for public safety and security, are properly operating, spending efficaciously, operating within the law and are not unduly threatening to civil liberties. This is a huge unreconnoitred piece. These new constructs have just come up in the last three or four years and we have not done our homework.
I know there was a bill in the last Parliament, Bill C-81, that had developed, with all-party consensus, support for a new construct for a committee of parliamentarians who would have access to the appropriate classified material in order to scrutinize these types of operations. That bill has not been reintroduced yet. I believe it is the intention of the minister to do so.
I and a number of members have worked hard on this envelope for a number of years and we would like to see that bill introduced quickly so Parliament may respond and get on with its important work on behalf of Canadians.
I look forward to seeing the bill referred to committee to deal with these relatively technical issues to which I have made reference, all of it being for the purpose of providing better planning, foresight and ultimately protection for Canadians for seen and unforeseen emergencies should they arise.
