Parliamentary Committee Notes: Emergency Management Strategy (EMS) for Canada

Proposed Response:

• A key priority for the Government of Canada is to strengthen governance, coordination and integration across all hazards, and continue to engage with provinces, territories and Indigenous partners to implement the Federal-Provincial-Territorial Action Plan for emergency management, advancing initiatives that will enhance Canada’s resilience.
• In January 2019, Federal-Provincial-Territorial Ministers Responsible for Emergency Management approved Canada’s first ever Federal-Provincial-Territorial Emergency Management Strategy for Canada.
• The Emergency Management Strategy builds on the foundational principles articulated in the Emergency Management Framework and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction in order to establish Federal-Provincial-Territorial priorities to strengthen the resilience of Canadian society by 2030.
• This Strategy establishes common priorities and areas for action that will help Canada prepare for the impacts of climate change, the effects of which are already being felt across Canada.
• The Government of Canada is committed to advancing this work with the ongoing collaboration of Federal-Provincial-Territorial Partners.
• In March 2022, Federal-Provincial-Territorial Ministers responsible for emergency management released the 2021-22 Federal-Provincial-Territorial Interim Action Plan to advance defined outcomes within the Emergency Management Strategy.
• The 2021-22 Interim Action Plan identifies strategic actions and activities that Federal, Provincial, and Territorial governments and respective Emergency Management Partners will undertake to build greater resilience to disasters across all four pillars of emergency management: prevention/mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery.
• This Interim Action Plan prioritizes regular Federal-Provincial-Territorial collaboration and engagement with key emergency management partners, including Indigenous leadership, and sets the stage for future plans to be built on sustained dialogue, active participation and ongoing discussions among all partners.
• Engagement with Indigenous communities is built into many of the activities included in the Interim Action Plan, such as through the National Risk Profile.
• Moving forward a broader and more inclusive approach to Indigenous engagement on emergency management will be pursued, which will inform the development of the 2022-24 Federal-Provincial-Territorial Emergency Management Strategy Action Plan.

Financial Implications

• To strengthen Canada’s ability to respond to such emergencies, Budget 2019 invested $151.23 million over five years, starting in 2019–20, and $9.28 million per year ongoing, to improve emergency management in Canada, including in Indigenous communities.

Background:

A key recent mandate commitment for the Minister of Emergency Preparedness is to strengthen governance, coordination and integration across all hazards, recognizing emergency management is a whole of society priority, and continue to engage with provinces, territories and Indigenous partners to implement the Federal-Provincial-Territorial Action Plan for emergency management and advance initiatives to enhance Canada’s resilience.

In January 2019, Federal, Provincial and Territorial (FPT) Ministers Responsible for Emergency Management approved Canada’s first-ever FPT Emergency Management Strategy for Canada (EM Strategy), which establishes FPT priorities to strengthen the resilience of Canadian society by 2030. The EM Strategy seeks to guide FPT governments and their respective Emergency Management (EM) partners in carrying out priorities aimed at strengthening Canada’s ability to assess risks and to prevent/mitigate, prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters.

The EM Strategyseeks to align the efforts of all Canadians, as well as to strengthen overall resilience through five priority areas of activity. These priority areas of activity were approved by FPT Ministers responsible for EM in May 2017:

1. Enhance whole-of-society collaboration and governance to strengthen resilience;
2. Improve understanding of disaster risks in all sectors of society;
3. Increase focus on whole-of-society disaster prevention and mitigation activities;
4. Enhance disaster response capacity and coordination and foster the development of new capabilities; and,
5. Strengthen recovery efforts by building back better to minimize the impacts of future disasters.

After approving the EM Strategy, FPT Ministers Responsible for Emergency Management directed the Senior Officials Responsible for Emergency Management (SOREM) to develop and advance a series of Action Plans to advance the implementation of the EM Strategy to 2030. SOREM represents the collection of FPT government organizations who lead emergency management efforts on behalf of their respective jurisdiction. 

The Action Plan is intended to advance defined outcomes within the EM Strategy, and to develop the concrete steps that FPT governments, and respective EM Partners, intend to take to advance resilience to disasters within Canada. This series of Action Plans has commenced with an Interim Action Plan for 2021-22 (due to COVID-19 delaying development), but will enter into a biennial cycle beginning in 2022-24. The 2021-22 Interim Action Plan was approved by FPT Ministers in March 2022 (March 17th, 2022), and published online.

Financial Implications

To strengthen Canada’s ability to respond to such emergencies, Budget 2019 invested $151.23 million over five years, starting in 2019–20, and $9.28 million per year ongoing, to improve emergency management in Canada, including in Indigenous communities. This funding has been split among federal departments as follows:

Public SafetyCanada
($≃19.37 million, 5 years; $1.37 million o/g)

• $7.52M | National Risk Profile – National Strategic Risk Assessment
• $6.85M; $1.37M o/g | Critical Infrastructure Program
• $5M | Public Awareness for Vulnerable Communities

Natural Resources Canada
($≃88.44 million, 5 years; $7.91 million o/g)

•  $35.24M, $2.51m o/g | Earthquake Early Warning
•  $5.95M | Earthquakes (National Risk Profile)
• $4.60M | Wildland Fires (National Risk Profile)
• $8.77M | Flooding (National Risk Profile)
• $33.88M, $5.40M o/g | Wildland Fire Strategy

Environment & Climate Change
($≃6 million)

• $4.94M | Predicting and Alerting for Coastal Flooding
• $1.53M | National Risk Profile - Flooding Mapping

Indigenous Services Canada
($≃57.69 million, 5 years)

• $47.72M | FireSmart of on-reserve Indigenous Communities

The Budget 2019 investment continues to improve Canada’s ability to predict and respond to hazards through the use of early warning systems, and enhance our understanding of the nature of the risks posed by floods, wildfires and earthquakes. In addition, this investment helps to assess the condition and resilience of Canada’s critical infrastructure—including energy grids, water and food supplies and health services—in the aftermath of a natural disaster.

Contacts:

Prepared by: Nelson Ferguson, Manager, Mitigation and Strategic Initiatives, EMPB, 343-552-2402
Approved by: Trevor Bhupsingh, ADM, 613-769-3042

Date modified:

2023-05-11