Public Safety committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. One of the main mandates of the Government Operations Centre is to monitor for those kinds of events. In broader terms, this act refers specifically to emergencies. It also monitors for the broader public safety issues. So we were very actively mo

Public Safety committee  I'm going to focus on two things, Mr. Chair. One is the relationship between the provinces and their municipalities. Ontario Emergency Management, under Mr. Fantino, has legislation that determines when municipalities must report things centrally to the province in Toronto. We

Public Safety committee  Yes, and that's the basis of the national emergency response plan. We have a federal part of it that we've done, and now we're working with our federal and territorial colleagues. Our commitment to them was to have our systems be complementary to their systems. We've identified s

Public Safety committee  I can respond to that. From an ops centre to ops centre point of view, we were very engaged with the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA down there. We had a 24/7 connectivity, both in a secure and unsecure manner. There's also a common chat frequency on the international po

Public Safety committee  Depending on what report you read out of Katrina, that's really difficult to answer, because their system is different from ours. Number one, in their infrastructure they have a FEMA, which Canada doesn't. They have the National Guard, which is a huge response resource to New Orl

Public Safety committee  Maybe I'll give two quick examples of what we did for the hurricane season this spring. It's only in the last two years that we developed a whole government contingency plan to assist provinces and territories, in this case, by and large, the eastern provinces for the hurricane.

Public Safety committee  We deal with that as we deal with the provinces, and then it becomes their jurisdiction as to what they want to do with it.

Public Safety committee  If I went back to the shootings in the school in Montreal, it was very sequential, from the Montreal Urban Community Police Service, to the Protection civile in Quebec City, and from them directly to our regional director and to us. So I would say within a matter of—and I'm guess

Public Safety committee  That's pumped out from one to the other very quickly. In other provinces, we share the same software for event management, and they can enter immediately, at the provincial level, information that we can see right away on our screens.

Public Safety committee  Just the legislation that provides the leadership mandate and then the mandate to make sure that federally departments have plans that are all aligned will make a big difference. Right now, different departments have developed their own ways of responding. The coast guard respond

Public Safety committee  No, what needs to be there is there. The changes that need to be done are to have more of it and to improve and enhance the capabilities. Secure connectivity is an example. It's there, but it's not the fastest. We need to get faster equipment out there, and there are projects o

Public Safety committee  Yes, there is the parliamentary precinct plan that's ongoing. Kevin Vickers, I believe, on the House of Commons side, is dealing with that. I believe yesterday there was a meeting with Diane MacLaren and Mr. Vickers on that. There are two different branches within the departmen

Public Safety committee  I'll start off with the visit. When we became a new department, we inherited what was there. That didn't meet anybody's needs, so we just totally destroyed it. We have a temporary ops centre that's still there, but early November would probably be a great time to come back. You'

Public Safety committee  It's the Jackson Building, at Bank Street and Slater Street.

Public Safety committee  Earlier, I think one of your references, Mr. Chair, was to the urban search and rescue capacity. I believe there are five teams across the country. A lot of the funding has been federal, but there are municipal and local resources. There is an agreement with the funding and tra