Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Patrick Tanguy, I'm the Assistant Deputy Minister responsible for the Emergency Management and Programs Branch at the Department of Public Safety. I'm also responsible for the Government Operations Centre. First of all, I want to give members a

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  If we use the B.C. wildfires as an example, as I was mentioning, the system is built to have municipal responders if there are some fires. The way that fires happen in B.C. means police and firefighters will be involved at the local level. When they need more support, they will e

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We mentioned the DFAA program, for instance, in the case of the B.C. wildfires, so there's a process. In the case of B.C., the B.C. government requested an advance payment of $100 million. There's been a letter sent to the Prime Minister triggering a request under DFAA to get acc

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  As you mentioned, they can do a wide range of support and services by registering, but also with awareness programs to make sure that people know exactly what's happening. Eligibility for programs is another thing. Vulnerable populations have targeted services to help them not o

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  DFAA, the disaster financial assistance arrangements, basically apply the same way as with all provinces and territories, except there is a threshold. It's a very complex formula to establish the threshold, but basically for instance, B.C. had to reach a threshold of $14.9 millio

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  No, no, I think he had great points. I just want to add that this is asking us.... We've been talking a lot about lessons learned, but we need to have evacuation plans in place, because otherwise there is a bit of chaos that happens. If you are moving some elders to different com

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, please. One aspect you may want to consider is that provinces and territories have created this Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, which is pulling resources together and working together. With the B.C. wildfires, for instance, they were able to redirect some assets an

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  You are right. To my knowledge, this is mostly in the west. FireSmart is a program that's in the context of an emergency management strategy for Canada. This is a program that works, and it's something we're considering expanding. My colleague can correct me, but we have around 2

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That's a great question, and I really am glad you're asking it. I would say two things. The first is that awareness is a problem. While we identify and are working on these areas—and I'm not just talking about indigenous populations; I'm talking about non-indigenous populations

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I can add one aspect. In terms of consultations, what we heard, especially during a joint meeting that federal ministers had with their B.C. counterparts after the event—and some regional leaders were invited to that meeting as well—is that there was a lack of consultation on tha

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There's one, absolutely.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It took some time to provide the answer. Indeed we have one, absolutely.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  No, not to my knowledge. I would refer to what my colleague has explained in terms of the existing agreements that are helping and supporting indigenous communities to have one. Looking forward, Public Safety Canada wants to partner and work closely with Indigenous Services. We'

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you for the questions. I can answer some aspects of your questions. The first thing is that, in the process in terms of emergency management in the context of B.C. wildfires, our minister received a request for assistance from the B.C. government, and in turn, given the l