CAEP – Emergency Report – August 2008

Annual Report
Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police
Emergency Management Committee
August 2008

Background on Establishment of the Committee:

At the August 2007 Board of Director’s Meeting in Calgary, Alberta, Assistant Commissioner John Neily of the R.C.M.P. made a presentation recommending the CACP form an Emergency Management Committee. In that presentation Assistant Commissioner Neily spoke about the efforts of emergency services partners and the police trying to find ways to address the concerns about emergency preparedness, especially since September 11, 2001. He spoke about the great effort and no resources available for emergency services partners and no real leadership or support from the different orders of government to confront the issues.

Assistant Commissioner Neily spoke about emergency services representatives trying to bring focus to the problem and although limited funding had been provided to some, there had been no sustainability for our emergency preparedness efforts nationally.

He urged the CACP to form the Emergency Management Committee recommending an integrated association and integrated response involving all 911 emergency services partners. He also indicated that the Conference Board of Canada was willing to help and that they had done reviews of the Hurricane Katrina impact in New Orleans and some follow-up on the impact in New York City from the September 11th, 2001 attack.

Prior to the presentation to the Board of Directors, Assistant Commissioner Neily approached Chief Michael Boyd of the Edmonton Police Service to ask if he was willing to co-chair the committee, should the Board of Directors approve and authorize the formation of the Committee.

The Board of Directors approved the formation of the Emergency Management Committee and efforts were made to get senior police representation from across Canada along with senior official representation from other 911 Emergency Responder organizations (Fire and EMS) along with federal, provincial and territorial emergency management organizations.

Subsequently, representation was sought from the Emergency Medical Services Chiefs of Canada and the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs. President Bruce Farr, Chief of Toronto EMS and Executive Director Don Warden respectively have joined the committee. There is now national cross-association collaboration of 911 emergency responder organizations.

The following organizations are represented to date by the following named members:

R.C.M.P. – Assistant Commissioner John Neily (Co-Chair)
Edmonton Police Service – Chief Michael Boyd (Co-Chair)
Emergency Medical Services Chiefs – President, Chief Bruce Farr
Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs – Executive Director, Don Warden
Ottawa Police Service – Deputy Chief Sue O’Sullivan
Ontario Provincial Police – Chief Superintendent Brian Deevy
Canadian Operational Support, Military Police – Lt Col. Mike Taylor
Vancouver Police Department – Deputy Chief Steve Sweeney
Surete du Quebec – Marc Parent
Montreal Police –
Calgary Police Service – Inspector Barry Clark

Note: R.C.M.P. Chief Superintendent Gordon Black will replace retiring Assistant Commissioner Neily effective September 01, 2009

The Committee met three times between August 2007 and August 2008.

The committee members worked on developing a “Framework For Action”. This included establishing a Mission, determining what organizations should be invited/represented, and how things would be achieved. We also considered how we might deliver the Framework for Action and how we would determine when we were successful.

Mission:

The Mission of the CACP Emergency Management Committee (CACP EMC) is to promote and advocate the development and delivery of an integrated national framework for emergency management and response.

Which Agencies will we connect with?

• Police, fire and emergency medical services (EMS) otherwise referred to as 911First Responders
• Emergency Management organizations of provinces and territories
• Public Safety Canada
• Federation of Canadian Municipalities
• Canadian Police Research Centre
• Canada Command of the Canadian Forces
• Liaison with other CACP Committees such as:
  • Private Sector Liaison
  • Counter Terrorism and National Security
  • Infomatics
  • Law Amendments

What will the Committee do or achieve:

• Representing 911 First Responder organization
• Advising on tactical issues
• Identifying and prioritizing emergency management issues and challenges within current systems
• Identifying and advising on strategies to counteract the above challenges
• Acting as an advocacy group for legislative and public policy changes
• Developing, cataloguing , sharing and perfecting best practises
• Designing and delivering workforce resilience planning for our organizations’ and employees’ well-being.

Delivering the Framework:

• It will be developed and led nationally integrating all three levels of government
• It will use emergency management doctrine as its foundation
• It will include national strategy(ies) for:
  • Funding
  • Equipment
  • Training
  • Exercising
  • Inter-jurisdictional authority
• It will develop inventories of:
  • equipment and skills
  • agreements
  • training
  • best practices
  • lessons learned
• It will be developed based upon a national “all hazards risk assessment” against the urgency driven by the upcoming four major events, i.e. Van2010, NALS, G8 and G20
• An effective communications plan will be developed for the framework
• A workshop of experts to address the prioritization of challenges in the Emergency Management context and in particular as it impacts 911 First Responders community and thereby ratify or adjust the priorities set by the CACP EMC

We will gauge our success when:

• When we see movement on the current national emergency management response deficiencies and presented that solution to the Federal Minister of Public Safety, for use as a catalyst for change.

The EMS Committee will assist the Infomatics Committee with their conference scheduled for February 2009 in Victoria, British Columbia.