STANDING COMMITTEE
ON
JUSTICE POLICY
COMITÉ
PERMANENT
DE LA JUSTICE
Wednesday 25 August 2004 Mercredi 25 août 2004
EMERGENCY
MANAGEMENT
STATUTES REVIEW
CANADIAN RED CROSS, ONTARIO ZONE
PUBLIC
PROTECTION
ACTION COMMITTEE
GLOBAL WARMING
PREVENTION TECHNOLOGIES INC.
The committee met at 1020 in room 151, following a closed session.
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
STATUTES REVIEW
The Acting Chair (Mr Mike Colle): We'll bring to order the meeting of the standing committee on justice policy.
Just for our deputants' information, this committee is mandated to deal with an overview of all Ontario emergency management statutes for the purpose of writing a draft report and draft legislation to be presented to the Legislature. To that end, we've invited literally hundreds of expert witnesses from across the province to deliberate before us. We've also had deliberations from the provinces of Quebec, Alberta and Nova Scotia and we are getting their perspectives. We've also had some roundtable expert panel discussions, and I notice that the first presentation is the Ontario Paramedic Association. We have had a roundtable where we've had the Ontario Provincial Police, the fire marshal and, as you know, a representative of the emergency measures services in Toronto. They've all been very helpful.
ONTARIO PARAMEDIC ASSOCIATION
The Acting Chair: We begin today's agenda with a presentation from Mr Robert Burgess, president of the Ontario Paramedic Association. Thank you in advance, Mr Burgess, for being here. I think it will be very interesting to have the contribution of the association. Would you proceed with commentary on your part? If you want to leave some time for questions or comments, you can. You have approximately a half-hour.
Mr Robert Burgess: Thank you, Mr Chair and panel. I certainly anticipate that I'll take much less time than that. Thank you for inviting us to participate in this important process. Certainly paramedics have had long-standing experience with emergency issues and disasters throughout Ontario, obviously recently with SARS and other issues that I'll allude to as I go through.
Before I get into some discussion about the actual matter at hand, I just wanted to remind the panel about who the Ontario Paramedic Association is, and give just a brief review of paramedicine in general. Because it is such an evolving profession, it's always worthwhile to update where we are.
The OPA is a voluntary organization that represents close to 2,000 of the practising paramedics in Ontario. Our numbers are increasing yearly. We're not a labour body; we're not a union. However, we do have good working relationships with the labour bodies as well as all the other stakeholders in the profession. In fact, our goal is to be the voice of the profession in general, inclusive of all stakeholders, not just labour.
We have 12 chapters throughout the province, and I consulted with as many of these groups as I could upon hearing of my opportunity last week. So I hope what I bring you today is an opinion from across our province.
Paramedics have evolved greatly over the last 10 years particularly. Early in the 1990s, it was very difficult to find a paramedic outside of the city of Toronto or other urban centres that provided advanced life support. Now, less than 10 years later, the minimum standard for paramedicine across this province is primary care, which means they can perform advanced life support. Beyond that, we have a number of paramedics who practise at a higher level known as advanced care. They can perform many of the procedures that you see in hospitals, when patients are taken to hospitals for care.
We also have a select few critical care paramedics who perform primarily in inter-facility transports, from one ICU to another, for instance. Those paramedics are often used as part of emergency response and disaster response. In fact, many of those paramedics make up the core of the emergency medical assistance team that you're familiar with.
We certainly feel we've gotten away from the phrase "ambulance driver" in the last few years, thanks to the work of many people, some of whom are around this table. Certainly we do a lot more than just drive people to the hospital. We attempt to provide as much care as we can on the way to the hospital.
The Acting Chair: Excuse me just for one second. Along that line, I think it might be important for all of us here that you just explain the term "advanced life support," because I think that's very critical -- no pun intended there.
Mr Burgess: Well, it is, and thank you. "Advanced life support" is a term that is used to describe a select level of care that is provided by certain paramedics across the province. I'll give you a few examples that will probably best highlight it.
In the emergency department there are a number of medications that are given by physicians, mostly for the treatment of cardiac disease. But certainly in the last few years we've added a number of medications to treat things like stroke, head injury, and we're also using some drugs to manage pain and patients who have combative presentations.
As well as that, we perform procedures like intubation, which is sticking a tube down the patient's throat for direct access to the lungs, something you'd normally have done either in an emergency department or in an operating room prior to surgery.
These are skills that a group of people working with the base hospital programs in Ontario, paramedics and service operators feel are important to have available to Ontario patients prior to reaching the door of the hospital.
Educationally, a primary care paramedic has two years of community college training. Those who are selected proceed with one more year of training to advanced care. That training is often done through service-based initiatives. Very few are then selected to carry on with critical care training for a further year.
An exciting addition to our educational programs in Ontario began last year. Ontario's first four-year degree program in paramedicine began at the University of Toronto, in collaboration with Centennial College. We're very excited by that. Certainly we're seeing that the standards for our practice are moving forward at an exponential rate.
Specifically to the matter at hand, then: paramedicine and emergency management. Our experience with SARS in the past year highlighted to everyone here I'm sure that paramedics, like many other health care providers, are front-line health care providers. When I think of our experience with SARS, it becomes evident and obvious that paramedics are canaries in the mine, so to speak.
It may not just be things like infectious disease. It may be a situation like we had downtown this morning, where we had a hostage-taking incident. Often paramedics will get calls to attend for seemingly simple situations and end up in what is often determined in the end to be a disaster. Paramedics have to be equipped to deal with those situations as they arise. They have to be able to define those, understand those and respond to those as necessary.
In emergency medical services there was a feeling, up until about 2001, just before 9/11, that the best way to manage risk was to avoid it. Certainly we've learned that that is a fallacy. You cannot avoid risk. That probably makes good sense to everyone here. The best approach to risk is to prepare. Paramedics have decided -- in my opinion, led the charge -- to develop a risk management process for disasters that allows us to meet these challenges head-on.
Paramedics will enter hot zones. Hot zones are those areas where the incident is occurring, areas that most people should be evacuated from. If in the unfortunate case paramedics are in the hot zone without the protective equipment they require, they will continue to perform care to the best of their ability.
Fortunately we've had special teams developed over the last few years in response to a number of the incidents that have occurred around the world. We are developing a process whereby specially trained paramedics will be the only ones who enter these hot zones. But it is important for this panel to understand, as you go through your deliberations about this important legislation, that any paramedics, with special training or otherwise, could find themselves in these situations.
When I was looking at and discussing with my colleagues the relationship between our profession and emergency management, I found it quite interesting, when I looked back at some of the incidents that have occurred in the past 10 years or so -- which I've summarized on a chart on page 5 of the presentation.
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We've noticed that there have been a number of initiatives that have occurred after events. Certainly, I think this is just a normal process, if you will. It happens in most disciplines. You try to prepare, for instance, as best you can, but often what happens is you suffer an incident and then ultimately have to respond.
If you go through these, from the Malton plane crash, for instance, which was our first exposure as a large group of professionals to an incident of that size -- it really highlighted the need to have skills in triage and mass casualty management -- all the way down to SARS, where we learned something seemingly so basic: that the management of infectious diseases, recognizing those and responding to them is something that has to be part of a core process for us. I think, like all health care providers, infectious disease management is something that we do every day and can become somewhat complacent about. So from a paramedics perspective, it's important that we bring that back on to the radar.
As I mentioned, after 9/11, we had the development of two special teams, mostly in the urban centres -- something I'll allude to later on. CBRN teams are chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear teams. They are trained to handle responses to incidents that involve those different entities. Also, the HUSAR team, the heavy urban search and rescue team that was used on the collapse of the theatre just off Yonge Street last year, is designed to go in, again, to these hot zones and remove patients from rather unstable environments.
So what are the challenges that I see for your committee while they deliberate on this important legislation? There are five that we came up with: first, the Ambulance Act; second, communication; third, training; fourth, resource capacity, a big issue in this province; and fifth, the scope of the legislation, either proposed or that you might amend. I'll talk briefly about each of these.
The Ambulance Act: It's important to understand that the Ambulance Act is the only legislation governing paramedicine. Paramedicine is unlike every other health care process in this province. We are not regulated. We are not under the RHPA, and "paramedicine" is not defined anywhere except for an appendix or schedule in the back of the Ambulance Act. This has some ramifications.
If, for instance, we have a large incident in Ontario and you need to call on further capacity, draw people in to a large disaster, there's no legislation that dictates that a paramedic must remain a paramedic when they no longer work for an ambulance service. In other words, when a paramedic finishes their shift at night and goes home, according to the legislation, they're no longer a paramedic. We act like them, we are paramedics, we consider that we act professionally and do that and follow our standards, but there's nothing in legislation that says that we are, unlike other health care professions that are regulated based on their scope of practice, rather than who they work for. This certainly could have some ramifications related to call-back issues, search capacity and other items that certainly you're much more familiar with than I am.
Also, paramedicine remains a non-essential service. There have been some provisions in some of the collective agreements around the province that have developed paramedicine in somewhat of an essential service process, but the whole issue of essential service still needs to be vetted out.
Communication: I think you'll find it surprising to know that a simple thing like portable radios -- I was reading Dr Young's deputation and how he spoke of communication being so important and the various equipment that would be available to the groups working on this process. Portable radios are not mandatory for paramedics to have. It's been something that we've been looking at for a number of years now. It's a very expensive issue, particularly if there's a lot of these rural services.
Beyond that, we don't have any clear redundancy built into our system. When one communication process fails, often there's very little in the way of backup. Paramedics have been known to regularly use their own personal cellphones to complete calls or gain information about situations. So certainly, that's something that needs to be looked at in terms of being able to allow the paramedic to communicate with the incident commander on an event or, in fact, be available for a response to regular care.
Also, we've noticed on a few occasions that it's often difficult to define who the incident commander is. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the IMS process, the incident management system of managing a disaster, the incident commander, as I've described him, is very similar to Supreme Commander Eisenhower, who brought together all of the various organizations and led the charge, resulting in D-Day, as you know. Similarly, in disaster management there needs to be one single voice that directs all of the practitioners, all of the professions, on an incident. That person should have particular and specific training on incident management. Often what happens is that on the day of an incident somebody is assigned who has taken a course or has attended some seminar surrounding incident management. That's a specialty I would very much like to see developed. I don't particularly have concern about where that comes from, whether it's fire-based personnel, police, EMS or some combination thereof, but clearly there needs to be a very specific person who is available to jump into that incident commander role at a moment's notice.
As you've heard many times through the various deputations about SARS, there was a significant amount of confusion surrounding the messages we received from all government levels during SARS. Some of that was unavoidable because of the systems we had in place at the time. Some of it was because we simply don't have, or don't rely on, the appropriate technology to move out information on a timely basis. In my opinion, on occasion we try to use technology that is too elaborate -- Web-based technology etc. That's not always accessible for people, particularly in the north. A simple telephone message that's updated regularly was something we found very helpful in SARS.
Training processes: Paramedics are generally well-trained to handle disasters, and I'm sure you're quite comforted to hear that. However, as I mentioned, we find that specific training often follows an event. It's very difficult to engage various regulators and government officials to understand that we need to plan for events before they happen. They're costly; these disaster exercises cost a lot of money, but really it's the only way that we can properly plan and challenge our own processes to see where the weaknesses are. There's no point in having a disaster exercise that's simply a PR event. We often see those; that's not helpful. We need disaster exercises that find the holes in our system so that we can address those properly.
There is also very little opportunity for us to train with our fire and police colleagues, again because of resource allocation issues. That's important: for us to work together as a team. That's the way the call will be done -- again, with the proper incident command structure. Unfortunately, because of the lack of resources in most of the communities, participation in these disaster exercises is often limited to special event/special team-type paramedics who are a very limited, select group of people and may in fact not be available on the day of the incident. Certainly those people need the training; no question. But every paramedic in this province needs to have exposure to these scenarios so they can respond.
Capacity issues: SARS taught us that we need to have a surge capacity. You'll recall that, during SARS in the city of Toronto and the region of York, at one point half of the workforce was quarantined. Some were in a work quarantine situation, which means they could come to work, wear their paraphernalia and go home at night. It's like being grounded: You go to school, you come home, you go to bed. Others were directly quarantined in their home because of exposure issues. We ran into a circumstance where we lost a significant number of our resources to manage everyday calls, the day-to-day calls in the city of Toronto and York region. We did not have good surge capacity to bring people in to cover that. A lot of issues surround that -- labour relations issues, service issues, contracts etc -- but one of the things I found interesting was that we really don't have a good inventory of resources across this province.
I've left you three charts that follow slide 15, which show you the impact of the quarantine process on the city of Toronto during SARS. What I'd like you to note on slide 16 is that the most common reason for quarantine during that circumstance was exposure to a hospital that had had a SARS patient. If we try to translate that to a bio-terror event, you can imagine what will happen if a number of paramedics, police officers or firefighters enter a zone where there is a hazardous material. If it is infectious in nature, you lose those resources. So you need to be prepared to backfill those.
Some concerns, particularly from the north, about the potential scope of the legislation: There are concerns that if the legislation is worded in such a way that there are significant expectations of some of these small services to have special teams, to have special training, they will not be able to cope without significant resources being added. It may be wise to consider, during your deliberations, the sharing of resources, mutual agreement processes, where you have special teams specifically situated throughout the province that communities can access -- much more efficient. Those teams could be trained and keep their skills honed.
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Finally, just a review of my recommendations:
Number one, I feel that portable communication devices must be available to all paramedics at all times.
Each community must define their incident command process, or in fact their incident commander.
The relationship between the provincial and municipal governments and other levels of government must be clear before an incident occurs. Certainly during SARS we saw a lot of confusion about from where the paramedics and other health care providers should take their direction. That needs to be spelled out.
An inventory of paramedic and other provider resources needs to be completed. To be honest with you, we're not really sure how many paramedics are in this province. We think there are about 5,500 practising within the Ambulance Act, but there are significantly more who perform medical transport who could be used during a disaster. We don't have an inventory of those people, simply because we don't have a licensing body. We have no idea what their credentials are as well.
Incident management training needs to be ingrained into our teaching programs. It is not very useful to have incident management training as a stand-alone process. You need to have it as part and parcel of the core training of all of these providers, and it needs to be updated regularly.
Participation in disaster exercises must be extended beyond just the special teams and, very importantly, be integrated with fire, police and hospitals, all pieces of the puzzle.
And please remember the reality of differences; please try to recall that there are significant differences between rural and urban EMS systems. We trust that those will be reflected in any proposed or amended legislation.
Thank you.
The Acting Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Burgess. We'll have some questions from members of the committee. We'll start with Mr Zimmer, then Ms Broten.
Mr David Zimmer (Willowdale): I'm unclear from your presentation who organizations like yours report to in an emergency, who you take direction from or who you work for.
Mr Burgess: The association itself is simply a voluntary association that does not have a role, particularly, in emergency management. They're just an association of the paramedics. The paramedics themselves generally work for counties, municipalities or regions and report directly to those groups.
Mr Zimmer: Within those groups in the counties, do they report through the hospital system or through the police system or through the fire department system?
Mr Burgess: There are various models. The municipalities, after downloading, had the authority to choose how their service would be operated. Some chose private operations, like hospitals; or in fact, there are still one or two funeral homes that operate ambulance services in the province. Some chose to take on the responsibility themselves, so report directly to municipal government. Others have amalgamated within the region and have one regional ambulance service, an example being Durham region. So there are still various models. I don't think there are any fire-based models at this point in the province.
Mr Zimmer: But the provision of paramedic services is something that's planned through other institutions, be they hospitals, police, fire departments etc. Am I correct on that?
Mr Burgess: In the provision of paramedic services, the main players involved in that are the emergency health services branch of the Ministry of Health that sets the standards through the Ambulance Act. The municipalities now direct their ambulance service provision. They are responsible to provide that service, however they choose to do that. There are a number of other stakeholders like base hospitals, which look after the medical component. But generally fire departments are an adjunct stakeholder to paramedics.
Mr Zimmer: And will you share your presentation with those institutions that you work with in the regions?
Mr Burgess: Absolutely.
Ms Laurel C. Broten (Etobicoke-Lakeshore): Thank you very much for your presentation. I wanted to get some clarification and pose to you a couple of suggestions that we've heard from other deputants before this committee. It's my understanding that paramedics have been deemed essential workers. Is that right?
Mr Burgess: I do not believe there's anything in legislation yet that deems them essential workers. I may be incorrect, but that's my understanding.
Ms Broten: OK. We've heard from some of our witnesses that we are lacking in that failure to acknowledge how many people really are essential workers during the context of an emergency like SARS, that you really need to be requesting people to work extended hours above the regular call. I wonder if you could just speak to that in terms of the discussions in your organization during the SARS crisis, as to whether you were down a number of your paramedics, in quarantine certainly, that you had a lack of resources at that time.
Mr Burgess: Absolutely. Only because the paramedics stepped forward and took on the added responsibility did we get through that. In circumstances where you have a protracted event like SARS, there's always the potential risk that you begin to lose your surge capacity. Without legislation like essential service legislation, it's difficult to compel people to be involved in these incidents when there's really nothing that does that. So I think it's an important piece.
Ms Broten: We've also heard from some other professional organizations that they wanted to bring in help from other provinces and the States and that those offers of help were made directly to them but our statutes prohibited taking advantage of those offers of assistance from outside the province. You're nodding your head. Was that also an issue in your field?
Mr Burgess: Absolutely. We had direct offers through our various contacts for individuals to come up and spell off, if you will, paramedics who were working here. Certainly when we were in the circumstance of quarantine with the city of Toronto and York, that would have been extremely helpful. There are a lot of challenges surrounding that -- different scopes of practice -- but not something we can't overcome. The information-sharing that went on between ourselves and New York state and Michigan was very helpful and certainly in the future we could utilize those resources.
Ms Broten: My last question is picking up on your concept of information. We've also heard that there were perhaps some barriers placed by front-line personnel not having access to information about the patient they were transporting or the hospital they were entering because the different organizational structures weren't speaking to each other. Was that something that you also observed?
Mr Burgess: Absolutely. I talked about the evolution of our profession. In fact, not so many years ago, we were unable to open an envelope containing patient information when we were doing a transport of a patient from one facility to another. It was against the rules to open that information. We simply had to take the information from the nurse verbatim and carry on. Through SARS, that process changed. Now, as you may be aware, paramedics work directly with the hospitals to authorize transport for patients from one facility to another to ensure that if they are presenting with an infectious disease, the paramedics and the receiving hospital are both prepared for that. So we've made some strides in that area, but it continues to be an ongoing concern. I think bringing these groups together in these various exercises will alleviate a lot of those issues.
Ms Broten: Thank you very much.
Mrs Liz Sandals (Guelph-Wellington): Just a couple of things I want to explore. Back to this issue of non-essential and the fact that you're not actually recognized as a profession: If I'm understanding your legal status correctly, you only have status through your employment.
Mr Burgess: That's correct.
Mrs Sandals: So you have no status other than through your employment. There's nothing out there that says, "This person is a paramedic by training and is always a paramedic." It's all tied to your employment. In that sort of legislative framework, have you thought at all about -- not to get into the argument of whether that's right or wrong, because presumably evolution into a regulated health profession takes a long time legislatively. In our context, which is looking at emergency situations, have you thought about how you would overcome the fact that you're not a recognized profession but you need to be an essential worker in the context of an emergency? Have you thought about how you would address that legislatively?
Mr Burgess: Our group, working with a number of stakeholders, has decided to take on the question of self-regulation. We know it's a long process. We are exploring that now and hope to have a report to the minister by this fall on where the profession stands on that issue.
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In terms of disaster management issues, to be honest with you, I haven't had a lot of thought about how we would manage the need for large numbers of paramedics, should a disaster occur and if in fact somebody holds up legislation and says, "Well, we don't have to be involved, simply because we're not at work right now." Personally, I'm quite confident to say I don't think that would happen. You'd have to turn them away, frankly. But if we want to talk paper, that's a possibility.
Mrs Sandals: I guess that's something, then, that the committee has to struggle with: How do you have that emergency essential worker status?
The other thing I find quite interesting is on slide 16 on page 8, where you look at exposure and how it was that people became quarantined. The vast majority, about three quarters, were exposed at a hospital. So it wasn't direct exposure during patient transport; it was merely the fact that you were in and out of a hospital. Perhaps that's not surprising, because that's how most of the exposure happened during SARS, through cross-transfer at hospitals. Have you thought at all about how that could be reduced as a risk?
Mr Burgess: Absolutely. We learned very clearly that paramedics need to be very vigilant about going into these situations and being prepared. There's no question that our management of infectious disease in health care was highlighted as an area that was lacking, and we've learned from that. Now when paramedics go to a patient or to an area that is potentially infectious, they are protected. My assumption is that if something like this were to happen again, the overall impact would be lessened as a result of those processes.
The other issue I referred to was to have these specialized teams with the proper equipment go in and do an assessment evaluation before letting the regular paramedics enter the area.
Mrs Sandals: There has been some work done in this area in response to this statistic?
Mr Burgess: Absolutely.
Mr Jim Brownell (Stormont-Dundas-Charlottenburgh): Just a little detail on the incident commander issue: You mentioned on chart 13 that the incident commander is not always evident, obviously, in some situations, and you'd like to see it probably in all situations.
Mr Burgess: Yes, and my reference to that was particularly in terms of early on in an event, when people are still trying to decide who in fact is going to be the incident commander.
Mr Brownell: Is it through training that they're identified before heading out to the scene? I'm not quite sure how they're identified when they get to a scene.
Mr Burgess: There could be a number of ways. Often, what will happen initially, and this is probably the appropriate tack, is that each service has their own incident command structure and then they organize and decide what type of incident this is -- is it a police incident, a fire incident, an EMS incident -- and then put that person in charge.
During that period, things are a bit vulnerable and that's when communication can be lost between the top and the bottom. Paramedics are trained to identify their direct supervisor as the initial incident command person at the scene. Again, because of quick identification, that's appropriate, but this ongoing detail about incident command is something that I think needs to be addressed, particularly among the heads of these various agencies.
Mr Wayne Arthurs (Pickering-Ajax-Uxbridge): If I can just refer to slide 20 under your recommendations. If you would, just give me some information or a little more explanation on recommendation 3: "The relationship between the provincial and municipal governments in times of an emergency must be defined prior to an incident." Within our existing legislation, the municipalities have the capacity to declare emergencies; they have responsibilities for that. The province has, on a provincial scale, the capacity to undertake provincial emergency initiatives. I'd have to think that in part, these types of issues might be who's in charge, what roles they're going to play and at what point there is an escalation in a local emergency that might require provincial intervention.
If you could help me; as I said, the recommendation is a little bit generic, so some context would help.
Mr Burgess: Certainly. In terms of an example, when a disaster becomes such that the province decides that it needs to declare an emergency or go through whatever process they do, there certainly is a shift in the level of reporting and responsibility from the municipal services that are offered. In day-to-day operation, the paramedics are only responsible to the municipalities or counties that they serve. We found during SARS that other entities came to the table. The province came to the table, as was appropriate, but it was an unusual circumstance and something that took a while to get used to. And because we were receiving mixed messages, it became difficult to determine in what direction, in some cases, we should proceed.
My suggestion relates to the fact that perhaps through some sort of tabletop process, this could be spelled out a little more clearly in the proposed legislation.
Mr Arthurs: So when the province becomes more fully engaged, maybe even if it's not considered a provincial-scale emergency, there may be a need for the province to have a more substantive role and thus the reporting around a tabletop structure would help EMS understanding at that point, and reduce any confusion as to what their reporting relation is going to be for the remainder of that time frame.
Mr Burgess: Absolutely.
Mr Peter Kormos (Niagara Centre): I'm interested in the four-year U of T program, and also the minimum two years' education -- two, three, four years. What's the salary range of paramedics in the province, in view of what is a considerable and intensive and expensive period of training?
Mr Burgess: Thank you for asking that question. I certainly am pleased to report that there recently has been what I term a market correction with paramedics. If you talk to municipalities, they'll tell you that they're quite surprised at the quality of care that's offered by paramedics and in fact what that means for the market. They certainly undervalued their professionals.
The salary scale that we see for a primary care paramedic can range anywhere from around $25 an hour up to $35 an hour closer to urban centres. So compared to other professions, we're entering the ballpark but we're not seeing the home plate yet. I think, given our education, the opportunity for paramedics to improve their lot in that area is something we'll see going forward.
Mr Kormos: Let's get this clear: As a member of the Ontario community, can I presume that anybody in an ambulance is at least a primary care paramedic?
Mr Burgess: Anybody in an ambulance that is governed under the Ambulance Act. Most interestingly, and I find this perhaps the most germane point of the evolution of our profession now, the Ambulance Act says that you can't get into your car, Mr Kormos, after the deliberations today and call it an ambulance. That's against the law. But you can certainly get in that car and call yourself a paramedic, if you want, because nothing is stopping you.
So if an ambulance pulls up and it's directed by an ambulance service and a paramedic gets out, the minimum standard is a primary care paramedic. The caveat is that there are some underserviced areas in the north that still rely on emergency medical responders to assist with those primary care paramedics. But there certainly will be at least one in that ambulance.
Mr Kormos: That's interesting, because that's where I was getting to. We've got the Ontario fire marshal's office, which can go into a community, audit the fire prevention firefighting services and then make recommendations around adequacy. Is there a parallel? Do communities have any resource like that provincially so that communities know -- and again, from your profession's perspective, the leverage you've got when you have authority saying, "Whoa. You're seriously understaffed; you're seriously underequipped; you're seriously undertrained." Do we have that in the province?
Mr Burgess: The province's mechanism is that every five years, the province does a review of each service using peers. That's been a very positive experience. The service operators exchange information and travel from place to place to see each other's operations, and also measure their qualities against set standards. I've found that to be a very positive experience, one that has led to improvements throughout the province.
There isn't a mechanism yet to have a truly objective third party or one of the associations -- perhaps ours or the association of EMS directors -- participate in that accreditation, if you will.
Mr Kormos: Is that an important thing, in your view?
Mr Burgess: Absolutely. That would also be very similar to other health care professions that do internal accreditation.
Mr Kormos: One of the things I've observed over the last few weeks is that there are two worlds in Ontario: There's Toronto, and then there's the rest of Ontario. Toronto, of course, because of the scale and the resources it has, has things its professionals can work with, whether they're firefighters, police officers or emergency medical response personnel, that small-town Ontario doesn't have.
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Mr Burgess: That's right.
Mr Kormos: That, to me, is a dilemma, and that goes, of course, to levels of funding, doesn't it?
Mr Burgess: It absolutely does. It's interesting; I just returned from the Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference. Clearly, the hot-button issue is lack of funding from the province to support some of the municipalities, or at least the funding formula needs to be addressed to deal with that. Two reasons: One is the level of expertise, and the fact that no one could really predict what the cost of EMS was going to be for these municipalities.
Mr Kormos: Perhaps you'd introduce us to the young man you've brought here today.
Mr Burgess: This is my son, Jonathan Burgess, who does a very good job of keeping me in line.
Mr Kormos: Thank you, sir. Good to meet you, Jonathan.
The Acting Chair: Just a couple of questions before we finish up here. Mr Burgess, you've made some specific recommendations on behalf of the association. As you said, you're representing a cross-section of paramedics in 12 different communities, and you feel that we, as a committee, would enhance the work of paramedics if we looked at legislation that would ensure that there is provincial identification of an incident manager, for instance; that the process right now is very vague and, at a time of crisis, it's open to interpretation, basically. So you're wondering, who's in charge?
Mr Burgess: Absolutely.
The Acting Chair: That is something that others have mentioned to us; even Dr Young mentioned that.
The other key recommendation I think you've made is that there has to be some kind of ongoing training in a meaningful way to prepare emergency providers with the background necessary when an emergency does hit. That is not there right now; it's not systematic.
Mr Burgess: That's correct; it is not systematic.
The Acting Chair: OK. Also, for some reason, we don't allow help from outside, or it's very difficult to get help from outside the Ontario jurisdiction to come in here. New York state has offered, yet right now, the way Ontario legislation is, or lack of legislation, we can't even accept outside help.
Mr Burgess: Correct. It would be, during these incidents, very helpful to have people come in and participate.
The Acting Chair: The final thing is, I noticed in your presentation that you're the senior manager of Sunnybrook and Women's College health centre.
Mr Burgess: That's correct.
The Acting Chair: You're still there?
Mr Burgess: I am. I manage the base hospital program there.
The Acting Chair: Actually, Mr Kormos and I have something in common: We worked with a colleague of yours up there, Dr Verbeek --
Mr Burgess: I know Dr Verbeek well.
The Acting Chair: -- on the portable heart defibrillators. We tried to convince a committee of this Legislature in the last year or so to introduce -- because the paramedics across this province were asking us to make those portable heart defibrillators especially available in rural communities. We didn't have success convincing our colleagues at that time that they were necessary equipment to have, but we are continuing to work on that.
I was just thinking we should maybe, as a committee, get someone like Dr Verbeek to appear before this committee, given that he's the front-line manager. I don't think he's in that post any longer.
Mr Burgess: Dr Brian Schwartz is the director of base hospital services for the city of Toronto. Interestingly, Dr Verbeek, who you do know well, was the key medical director during the SARS issue for the providers. He was the one who worked with public health, determining issues related to quarantine. So I think his opinion would be quite useful here.
The Acting Chair: He has very strong and straight opinions.
Mr Burgess: Without question.
The Acting Chair: Anyway, perhaps the committee might make it possible. Even at a later date, perhaps, we can bring in Dr Richard Verbeek -- he's at Sunnybrook and Women's College health services centre -- to make a deputation before this committee. That would be helpful.
Thank you very much, and thanks on behalf of the committee to all the paramedics across Ontario for the great work they did during SARS etc. We certainly couldn't have done it without the front-line people like yourself and all the people you represent who did that most important work.
Thank you for taking time to be here, and thank you to your son for taking time from his busy schedule to be here. Make sure dad gets straight home or straight to work, wherever he's got to go.
CANADIAN RED CROSS, ONTARIO ZONE
The Acting Chair: The next presentation is from the Canadian Red Cross. We've got two presenters here: Gordon Moore is the general manager, Canadian Red Cross, Ontario zone, and Steven Armstrong is the manager, disaster and international services, Canadian Red Cross, Ontario zone. Sorry to keep you waiting but we're running a little bit behind. Thank you for being here.
It's the same format. We have until 12 noon -- excuse me, we don't have until 12 noon. We've got about half an hour, because we have the Dairy Farmers of Ontario to present too, so if you could give a presentation, then we'll ask questions or make comments. Identify yourself before you speak so we can record it for Hansard, as all our deputations are recorded verbatim in our Hansard transcripts. Thank you.
Mr Gordon Moore: My name is Gord Moore. I'm general manager of the Canadian Red Cross, Ontario zone, and with me is Steve Armstrong, manager of our disaster services and international services programs for the Ontario zone. Also with us this morning at the back of the room is Pamela Davie, our director of public affairs.
The Acting Chair: Pamela can come and sit up here if she wants.
Interjection.
The Acting Chair: OK. I just wanted to make sure that the invitation was made.
Mr Moore: I'm sure she feels welcome. Thank you.
Mr Chairman and members of the committee, good morning, and thank you for this opportunity to make a deputation as you consider what we consider to be a very important subject.
We're pleased to speak with you about what we see as the most significant issues that currently impact the cohesive delivery of disaster response in Ontario. When I speak of disaster response in terms of what it means to the Red Cross, I describe it as the assistance provided outside of the "yellow tape" of a disaster site. Emergency Management Ontario, police, fire and paramedics play a crucial and immediate role inside the yellow tape. We fulfill the urgent role of helping victims cope in the relief phase as well as supporting longer-term recovery.
The Red Cross agrees with and acknowledges that government has the primary role for disaster preparedness and response. What we want to do is support the government by sharing our lessons learned and assisting civil authorities in developing and implementing emergency preparedness and disaster mitigation activities.
What we want to bring to your attention in our deputation is the challenge posed in dealing with several ministries and between municipalities and the province in all phases of a disaster.
If I may, I would like to refer briefly to some text from a previous deputation that was made a few days ago to this committee when the representative from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Ms Diana Jardine, appeared.
The Acting Chair, in the question period, said, "I have just one last question myself, and that is that you mentioned that one of the failings you found is that the federal government doesn't have a one-window approach, that it's difficult in deciding whom to go to and who makes the decisions."
And further down in that same exchange, he again says, "As much as we can criticize the feds, I think maybe one of the duties of this committee would be to help your ministry and other ministries put forward the protocol, that one-window approach, and to define it a little bit better."
To that, we would say, "Here, here." We urge you to proceed with that.
Please note that we have included some examples to illustrate our points. These are not meant as criticisms but rather to demonstrate why we want to work together to improve coordination of disaster preparedness and relief.
Responding to disasters and conflict, whether domestically or internationally, is one of the cornerstones of the society's mission: "... to improve the lives of vulnerable people by mobilizing the power of humanity in Canada and around the world." The Red Cross is mandated by federal legislation as an auxiliary to civil authorities in disaster relief.
Unfortunately, the Red Cross and all emergency management agencies have had more experience in recent years than we would have ever dreamed possible: Y2K planning; September 11; floods and fires in northern Ontario; SARS; power blackouts; BC forest fires; the Pelee Island air crash; more recently, of course, the Peterborough floods; and providing assistance to 18,000 individuals in Canada who were removed from their homes in the last year due to small-scale personal disasters such as house fires.
The 7,000 Red Cross disaster services volunteers in Canada are well prepared through training, formal exercises and responses. Unfortunately for those made vulnerable by disaster, our volunteers have gained a wealth of disaster management experience.
A case in point is the ongoing response to the Peterborough floods, where 300 Red Cross volunteers from across the province have invested over 4,000 hours to ensure that we meet the needs of those made vulnerable by that disaster.
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During a response to a disaster, Red Cross works within the framework of local disaster plans to provide relief assistance to those affected by addressing their immediate basic needs; for example, shelter, food, clothing, personal hygiene, items of that nature. In the recovery phase, the Red Cross assists those who have the least capacity to restart their lives because they are living perhaps in poverty or are otherwise deemed to be among the most vulnerable. There will always be unique cases and unforeseen gaps in official plans and responses, and our mandate is to ensure that those gaps are filled. We saw this during the SARS response and we're starting to see it in the Peterborough response as well.
This leads us to the main point of our deputation: our recommendations to address the challenges of dealing across ministries and between municipalities and the province in all phases of a disaster.
The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing commissioned Dr Susan Corlett to review the 1998 ice storm recovery operations. The report, released in 2000, made a number of recommendations that relate to Red Cross, and the report is included in your package. I'll just refer to a couple of recommendations that pertain to us.
The Corlett report recommended that the government of Ontario do the following:
(1) Designate Red Cross as the key provider of assistance to citizens during the emergency phase of a disaster;
(2) Establish an accord with Red Cross regarding roles and expectations during an emergency; and
(3) Assist Red Cross in establishing a formal agreement with each municipality to be incorporated into local emergency planning.
We emphasize these three recommendations because currently, for our role in disaster management and response, it may be necessary to deal with several ministries, and frequently with two levels of government. These are community safety and correctional services through EMO; municipal affairs and housing; community and social services; health and long-term care, as was the example in the SARS response; as well as municipalities, which are responsible for managing a response in their jurisdiction but are subject to provincial approval and oversight for expenditures and the Ontario disaster relief assistance program.
The clarification and resolution of financial responsibilities is one example of how Red Cross is caught in the middle when trying to resolve operational and funding issues. In Ontario alone, we invest $2.5 million annually into developing and maintaining our response capacity. However, our disaster services program is not financially self-sufficient and, quite frankly, we struggle to cover those costs.
We are not here to request financial support -- I wanted to make that clear -- but rather to ask for recognition that there is a cost to building capacity and that there needs to be a provincial-municipal clarification of who is responsible for covering these costs. Municipalities feel that disaster preparedness is a provincial responsibility and the province says it is a municipal responsibility.
Municipalities request that Red Cross take on a range of responsibilities within their emergency response plans. As documented in Hansard, your committee has heard from the municipal panel that some municipalities are wondering why Red Cross is asking for financial support in order to build capacity to respond in their communities. We want to clarify that it is not the intention of Red Cross to charge retainers or standby fees for the provision of our disaster services. We meet with municipalities to establish the types and levels of service they require or are requesting of us. We measure the cost to provide the requested services and then develop with them a plan and a budget to meet their expectations. We do request that municipalities contribute to meeting these costs to ensure that they will be able to meet their legislated responsibilities. We believe that these are sound management practices.
An investment in capacity, as an example, means recruiting and training a volunteer like Robin Bondy, a resident of Windsor, who managed the Peterborough floods response for three weeks, overseeing a team of 50 people and a sizeable operational budget. Robin brought experience from BC forest fires, September 11, where she was deployed for three weeks, and the Pelee Island air crash to her most recent role in Peterborough. The cost of training a senior-level disaster services volunteer like Robin is under $5,000, but to us it's a very real cost.
Our experience is that municipalities feel these costs are reasonable and justifiable but that they should be covered at the provincial level and not downloaded to the municipality.
The provincial government did come forward and invest in local capacity building. Two years ago, the province announced and developed the CERV program to build a network of community-based volunteer teams throughout the province with a mandate to assist with responses to disasters.
We believe, and we did express this at the time to the commissioner of public safety, that this capacity already existed in the form of Red Cross and other agency volunteers. A portion of the resources that were allocated to developing and implementing the CERV program, Red Cross and our NGO partners, such as St John Ambulance, the Salvation Army and others, could have significantly increased existing networks of community-based volunteer teams.
When it comes to the reimbursement of costs related to a disaster operation, we try to clarify the situation at the outset in our discussions with government. Often, in a disaster situation it is unclear as to what is considered an eligible cost or expense. For example, with the SARS response, it took up to a year to receive clarification on eligible expenses before we were fully reimbursed. This is not necessary and we believe it is definitely preventable.
We respectfully suggest that the issues noted in our presentation could have been largely resolved by implementing the recommendations of the Corlett report.
The solution to these challenges is to clearly delineate expectations and the areas of responsibility and authority in advance. Just as a side note, during the last three disasters or so in Ontario, including SARS and Peterborough, we found ourselves having discussions with the municipality and the government as to who is responsible for what and who's going to pay what expenses. It doesn't need to be that way. If there's an agreement in advance, it's to benefit all parties.
The Red Cross has submitted these recommendations to the government of Ontario in the following documents: Discussion Paper for the Provision of Canadian Red Cross, Ontario Zone -- Disaster Services Support to the Province of Ontario, which was dated June 2001. We also made a submission in person to senior staff in the Premier's office called Investment in Red Cross Disaster Response Capabilities, in October 2002.
As well, you will find in your packages letters of support for these proposals from the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, AMO, which was referred to in the last presentation. In fact twice, under two different presidents, the AMO board has passed resolutions to send to the Premier of Ontario a letter urging that the province do an agreement with Red Cross.
The Red Cross thanks you for this opportunity to present to you today. In conclusion, I want to reiterate that we recognize the provincial government's role in the overall management of a disaster. It is in our role that we express the desire to find solutions to these issues we've outlined today.
Thank you very much. Steve will probably answer most of your questions.
The Acting Chair: We'll start with Mr Kormos.
Mr Kormos: How much time have we got?
The Acting Chair: We've got 15 minutes.
Mr Kormos: Oh, good.
Thank you kindly. Of course, the most recent disaster in Ontario was in the area of home care administered by CCACs when Red Cross, St Elizabeth Visiting Nurses' Association and the Victorian Order of Nurses -- three historic non-profit, community-based home care providers -- were squeezed out of the picture in yet another round of so-called managed competition because this government persists in maintaining the Tory model of privatizing home care. But I read in your annual report your position on neutrality, so it's better that I said that than you.
The Acting Chair: Don't put words in his mouth.
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Mr Kormos: But I can read his mind and I think the government members can too.
Look, I read with interest the Ipsos-Reid material you included, and I want to get to the letters from AMO. How do you account -- I found it interesting -- for the age element, in terms of the response? Older people were more familiar or identified more with Sally Ann, because Salvation Army came second to Red Cross; younger people, more so with the Red Cross.
What about the regional disparity? I noticed that in Hamilton-Niagara, Red Cross was the first choice at 41%, contrasted with, let's say, eastern Ontario at 76% and Northern Ontario at 85%. Did you do any analysis of that and why there would be those regional disparities?
Mr Steve Armstrong: Principally, it's the profile of the Red Cross office in the community. In the larger urban areas, our office can sometimes be overwhelmed in the fray of other organizations. In smaller communities, we do take a higher profile. Generally, within the small weekly presses, our operations get more media play, which therefore raises our profile within the community.
Mr Kormos: OK. Now, two letters --
Mr Moore: That survey was done after we exited from the blood collection program. We did the survey to find out what the general public's feeling was toward Red Cross. We were very pleased with those results, where 93% of Canadians still have a warm, fuzzy feeling toward Red Cross.
What we felt was that, in the older population, of course, many people who were involved in the Second World War were directly affected by our work in the field. Also, as Steve pointed out, in some smaller communities, if there was particularly a lot of attention to some aspect of our role in the blood situation, there might have been more negative publicity affecting those results.
Mr Kormos: OK. Now, attached to that, of course, are the two letters from AMO to Turnbull and then Runciman. What's been the net result of those submissions?
Mr Moore: Ongoing meetings, discussions, negotiations, but no agreement yet.
Mr Kormos: This relates to the recommendations that you refer to on the final page of your submission today, a discussion paper for the provision of Canadian Red Cross, Ontario zone disaster services, June 14, 2001 and October 22, 2002?
Mr Moore: Yes, and the Corlett report.
Mr Kormos: So is work being done in the ministries around this issue that you're aware of?
Mr Moore: Yes. We don't wish to cast aspersions.
Mr Kormos: I'll do that.
Mr Moore: OK. We have been working with the province for over two years in discussions regarding a disaster response agreement with Red Cross. The meetings are ongoing. We have had meetings with two Ministers of Municipal Affairs and Housing, now former ministers. We've had recent meetings with Municipal Affairs and Housing, but they were mainly regarding Peterborough. We had the one meeting referred to a couple years ago with senior staff in the Premier's office on this issue, and we've had two or three meetings with Dr Young and members of his staff.
Mr Kormos: What's the obstacle? What's the problem?
Mr Moore: We would like to know.
Mr Kormos: What do you sense?
Mr Moore: Early on in these discussions, we were suggesting that the province should play a role in what I mentioned in my presentation, and that is in capacity-building. We can sustain our current level of disaster preparedness and training. The challenge for us is in building that in preparation for a larger disaster response or for many at one time. There was a situation last summer where we were very near capacity, when there were about five events occurring all at once in the province. One was the Pope's visit. Fortunately, there were no occurrences during that, because that would have stretched us to the hilt, if there'd been a response required there.
Mr Kormos: Of course, there was Dennis Mills and the Rolling Stones, which did neither of them any good, at the end of the day.
Mr Moore: That too. So, initially, in our discussions with the province, we were suggesting that the province play a role in supporting capacity-building in a financial way. The response was that there was no money available. We've pretty much taken that off the table now in our discussions, but we are still saying, as we said in our presentation, that there is a cost. There is a requirement for financial support. We're doing the best we can, but increasing that capacity is a financial challenge. We would ask that you recognize that and determine whether it's the province or municipalities who should play a role in assisting. I think that's been one of the obstacles.
Mr Kormos: In closing -- this isn't a question as much as an observation -- one of my concerns about Red Cross being squeezed out of the home care programs is that, of course, that could diminish the staffing of a given region. Home care providers, being health professionals, although not instantly or in the first instance identified as disaster relief people, it seems to me could at the end of the day become part of that same team because of the skills they have. That's why, I say to government members, the foolhardiness of squeezing non-profit, historic home care providers like Red Cross, Victorian Order of Nurses and St Elizabeth visiting nurses out of the CCAC home care process has ramifications far beyond just the home care provision; it impacts on these organizations and their ability to serve us in other ways.
Mr Zimmer: I have two questions. You've talked about the need for a one-window approach; you've stressed coordination, initiatives and planning; you've used the expression that Red Cross often gets caught "in the middle;" and you have concerns about responsibility for costs of response to a disaster. My first question is, has Red Cross's response to any particular disastrous situation ever been held up or delayed in any way pending the determination of the responsibilities for the cost of responding to that particular disaster? Are there any examples of that?
Mr Armstrong: The Red Cross has never stopped a response because of a financial question. We've always responded and then we've dealt with it after the fact.
Mr Zimmer: All right. My second question, then, is, can you give me in priority -- one, two, three -- obstacles in the view of Red Cross to this one-window approach, of sorting out the responsibility for costs, the not-getting-caught-in-the-middle issue? Your three top obstacles.
Mr Armstrong: Principally, the first obstacle is we generally respond within the municipal structure, because they declare the disaster in an emergency. Then the next step is if --
Mr Zimmer: How is that an obstacle?
Mr Armstrong: Because they don't necessarily have the authority to expend funds, and if they invoke the ODRAP, the Ontario disaster recovery assistance program, and a financial cost recovery through the province, very seldom are individual municipalities aware of the terms of eligible costs that are involved with that. So they have to jump through the hoops with municipal affairs while we're expending funds on their behalf, unsure of our ability to recover those costs.
Mr Zimmer: How would you repair the obstacle?
Mr Armstrong: One way would be having a clearly defined agreement with the municipalities and with the province saying what are eligible costs, when they can be incurred and on whose authority, and then a reasonable way of how to recover those costs.
Mr Zimmer: Your second obstacle?
Mr Moore: I could mention one or two. We found this with Peterborough. We started an appeal to raise funds within 24 hours of that disaster happening. After about four days, we had some potential donors calling, many corporations, saying, "We understand that money raised by the city of Peterborough could be matched 2 to 1 by the province. Is your money being matched 2 to 1 by the province?" At that time, we didn't have an agreement with the province, we didn't have a formal agreement with the city of Peterborough, and that was an obstacle for a short time, about a couple of days.
Mr Zimmer: How would you address that obstacle?
Mr Moore: Let's have an agreement outlining -- one of the recommendations also, I believe, in the Corlett report is that we be designated as the fundraising arm in a disaster response, which we do. We did that in Peterborough.
Mr Zimmer: And the third obstacle?
Mr Moore: I was going to comment on ODRAP and Peterborough, but do you have any other comment on the obstacles?
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Mr Armstrong: One of the obstacles -- and it does follow with the ODRAP. An example can be used and an analogy can be drawn from Peterborough. Two years ago a similar disaster, a flood on a smaller scale, happened in Peterborough. It repeated this time. Unluckily for the people who were affected, but luckily for the city and for Red Cross, we learned our lessons the first time. So the city was a lot faster out of the blocks as far as response and declaring an emergency quickly, accessing the provincial funding, accessing the Ontario disaster recovery assistance program, and using organizations like Red Cross and others to their first and best use, right at the beginning of the disaster.
Generally, one of our impressions is, if we haven't worked with the municipality or an organization before, there are two levels of expectation: (1) they think Red Cross can't do anything, because they don't understand us; or (2) they think we can do everything. Neither one is true. It's somewhere in the middle. So we need to have a level of understanding and a level of education. I would go back to your previous deputation from the paramedic's association, where familiarity, exercising and knowing people in advance is a lot more effective than trying to figure it out in the heat of the response. One of our volunteers often says, "You would rather sit with somebody you don't like than someone you don't know." So if we know people and we work well with people, then we're better off down the road.
Mr Moore: Mr Zimmer, if I could make one further comment on obstacles, we talked about our desire to write an agreement with the province. At the present time, an agreement to cover all of the things we do in a disaster response would require us to write agreements with three different ministries, and maybe four.
Mr Zimmer: All right. Thank you very much.
Mrs Sandals: You've mentioned this whole area of agreements with municipalities or agreements with the province. I understood from some testimony from someone else some other day that, in some cases, municipalities do have agreements with you. Is that correct? How many municipalities would you have agreements with now?
Mr Armstrong: Formal agreements, I believe, about 20, to various degrees of service provision.
Mrs Sandals: And are there other municipalities where you have an informal arrangement but not a formal agreement?
Mr Armstrong: Generally, if it's an informal one, it refers to the service that we would provide in a time of disaster. Quite often what we find too is that municipalities or hospitals or other organizations write us into their plans and don't let us know that that's happening.
There is an example of a municipality in Ontario where three different hospitals had written us into their plans to provide volunteers to support them during their operations, and we weren't aware of it. The three hospitals in the community didn't know that each had done it, and neither did we.
So when they're informal, sometimes they're a bit tentative, at best, about our ability to respond.
Mr Moore: While there are only 20 formal agreements, we are mentioned in probably 90% of municipalities' response plans.
Mrs Sandals: Now, are there other organizations with which other municipalities would have formal or informal agreements?
Mr Armstrong: Often Salvation Army, St John Ambulance. I think the example that was used was Sarnia; they were using a Rotary Club at one time for a reception centre operation. I think that agreement has gone by the wayside in past years.
One thing we do try to ensure is that -- we would like to be the organization to provide those services, but we'll work with whomever is out there. We won't compete with -- if there's already an agreement in place with somebody, we're not going to try to push them out of the way. We want to work together. As long as it's covered and as long as there's a plan in place, that's our main goal.
Mrs Sandals: You're actually anticipating my next question, which is, if some municipalities have the local responsibility for management of an emergency, for whatever reason -- and it may just be whichever organization happens to be larger locally because, as you say, it varies from area to area -- what would be the effect of a provincial agreement? Because you're suggesting there should be a provincial agreement making you a lead agency but, clearly, the province would then be, to some degree, treading on the choices that municipalities, who have the primary responsibility for the plan, would be making. I'm wondering how you would see that dynamic unfolding, if what you're requesting were to happen.
Mr Armstrong: I think there are two requests, ma'am. One is an agreement with the province in the delivery of disaster services for the provincial level and supporting the various ministries, and the other is assistance with developing agreements with municipalities. If a municipality chose to go to another agency or develop an in-house capacity, I think that's well within their purview. We would strongly suggest that we're as good at it as anybody else and have the most experience, but if a municipality chooses to go somewhere else, it's their emergency plan, it's their responsibility under the act -- and we could provide that service.
Mr Moore: I think we're not looking to provide this service to the exclusion of all others; quite the contrary. Because of our experience worldwide in disaster response and the resources we can bring to the table in a major response from other jurisdictions, other provinces or the American Red Cross or wherever, typically we cover disaster response outside the yellow tape, complete. I'm not aware of any other organization that does. So frequently we play a coordinating role, still working with these other volunteer organizations. We did that in Peterborough with the Salvation Army. We worked very well together.
Mrs Sandals: OK. You mentioned the problem of interministerial, interlevel communications and confusion. Do you have any suggestions there? Obviously, this is a theme that seems to be emerging from a number of witnesses: Who's the lead? Do you have any suggestions to offer there?
Mr Armstrong: I would suggest, as a professional disaster manager, that there needs to be someone to be appointed in the lead, and then you draw on your best resources. Whichever ministry is at the point of managing a response to an emergency or a disaster should bring in the other people. If you use the model of an instant command system, everyone knows that whoever is in charge is in charge, but the support team, be it Emergency Management Ontario, the Ministry of Health, or in some cases in the north it's the Ministry of Natural Resources, has a strong input into that. But at the beginning and at the end of the day, someone has to be in charge. There are models out there from across Canada and certainly from the States that could be easily examined to see what benefit they could bring to the province of Ontario. But someone needs to be the coordinator of all that information, and I would suggest it would likely be Emergency Management.
Mrs Sandals: Thank you very much.
The Acting Chair: Just in closing, I guess the one thing you've emphatically stated is that we do not have a one-window approach here in Ontario. As professional front-line managers of disaster relief, you find that's not facilitating your work; you need some kind of one-window approach. And then you also need a designation of who's in charge. You don't care whether it's one ministry or another, but one of the ministries or one of the agencies, preferably a provincial agency, has to be clearly designated as in charge. The question I have is, could it be, for instance, interchangeable? For instance, if you've got a disaster in Sioux Lookout, God forbid, or whatever it is, or in a remote northern community, in Pickle Lake, it may not be Municipal Affairs, but it could be designated that MNR be the lead. Would that work?
Mr Moore: I think that is what has been happening, to some degree. In Peterborough, for example, it's been mainly Municipal Affairs and Housing. The SARS response was the Ministry of Health, and so on. Sorry, even there, Public Safety was heavily involved in SARS as well.
But yes, I think, depending on the nature of the disaster, it doesn't always have to be the same ministry. Wouldn't you agree, Steve?
Mr Armstrong: Whichever ministry it is, they also have to have some say and control over the gamut of the response, which includes the financial impact of it. Because that's where we get hung up. Someone's in charge of the response, but someone else is in charge of paying the bills, and there's a disconnect between the two pieces. That's where we struggle.
Again, we have to say that we do not stop a response or do not respond to a request for assistance because there's a financial question. But that creates a huge burden for the Red Cross Society and other agencies to try to jump through those hoops to figure out who's going to pay the bills at the end of the day, and hopefully we're not bankrupting ourselves in the response.
The Acting Chair: So that causes that ambiguity or lack of clarity which is -- in essence, you still do your job, but it is an obstacle that you would like us, as a committee, to look at mitigating or eliminating as best as possible.
Mr Moore: We find we're discussing these issues in the middle of a response. It happened with SARS.
The Acting Chair: It takes you away from the work at hand.
Mr Moore: And we prepared an MOU about four days into SARS, and the government told us, "We just don't have time to deal with this right now." The MOU was only five pages.
But we wouldn't have to do anything if we had an agreement prior that stipulated what your expectations of us are, what kinds of costs that we incur you will reimburse or exclude and that sort of thing. This can all be done ahead of time. We went through it again with Peterborough. We're meeting in the middle of the response, trying to discuss these issues. It's not a sensible way to do business.
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The Acting Chair: Thank you for that. One quick comment and then we have our next presenters.
Mr Zimmer: Just one quick comment. To get around this question of who is going to pay what in the face of a crisis, if there were some mechanism to the effect that reasonable costs incurred by the Red Cross in good faith, or some process for indemnification, and there were some sort of upfront piece of legislation that said that reasonable costs incurred by an entity like Red Cross would be indemnified by a government agency, you wouldn't have to go through this "Who is going to pay what?"
Mr Armstrong: That's exactly right. We're an extremely cost-effective organization. In SARS we supported 10,000 people quarantined in their homes and it cost us $77,000, and that was deploying 400 people for about a month and a half. I would purport that that was the cheapest bill the province of Ontario got.
Mr Kormos: Mr Chair, very important: You heard the phrase used during this submission, "You'd rather sit with someone you don't like than someone you don't know." I want the government members to remember that when they start to lose patience with me.
The Acting Chair: On behalf of the committee, I think it would be remiss if we didn't thank the Red Cross for the incredible work you've done for years, and continue to do, on behalf of the people of Ontario in times of real need. Sometimes we take organizations like the Red Cross or the Salvation Army for granted, as sometimes happens by government here, just assuming you're going to be part of the response team without understanding that there's the reality of having that infrastructure in place and investing in it and maintaining it. So again I express our deep appreciation, on behalf of this committee, for the great work the Red Cross has always done and that we hope you continue to do. Hopefully, as a committee, we can help you to do even better work.
Mr Moore: Thanks again for the opportunity.
Mr Kormos: Thank you, gentlemen. Keep the pressure on the CCACs, please.
DAIRY FARMERS OF ONTARIO
The Acting Chair: The next presentation is from the Diary Farmers of Ontario. They're going to set up a PowerPoint presentation. With us we have Bob Bishop, the general manager and chief executive officer of the Dairy Farmers of Ontario, and Gordon Coukell, the chair.
Perhaps we could just mention to our presenters here that yesterday we had a very excellent presentation on the threat of zoonotic diseases and the work being done by the coalition. Deborah Whale was here and gave us quite a thorough indication of the threats and the fact that there is a conference in Kitchener on August 31. I think one of our members is going to attend for an update on the avian flu outbreak in BC, so we're going to get a report back on that to the committee. We found that presentation yesterday quite compelling.
Mr Gordon Coukell: We'll be specific to the dairy industry and then make some comments later on the national initiative under the Canadian Animal Health Coalition, which is looking at emergency preparedness on the animal disease side of things too. We may cover a few points that Deborah alluded to yesterday, as far as an animal health act here in Ontario. We think that's a shortcoming that needs to be addressed too, not only from the emergency preparedness point of view but from the day-to-day business of animal agriculture here.
Mr Bishop will start off with the preparedness plans the Dairy Farmers of Ontario have and then I'll follow with some comments at the national level.
Mr Robert Bishop: It's a pleasure being here this morning. We didn't know we were going to face an emergency measure in trying to get here with the close-down of many of the streets. Anyway, we did make it roughly on time.
I'll just give you a little background of who Dairy Farmers is and what we do. As you can see, and I think you should all have a deck in front of you, even though our title is Dairy Farmers of Ontario, we are the marketing board operating under the Milk Act. We're a not-for-profit organization owned by our dairy farmers -- 5,282 of them across the province.
In the last 12 months those farms produced 2.5 billion litres of milk. That was worth, at farm gate, $1.6 billion. That represents about 20% of the Ontario farm gate cash receipts.
To get that milk to market, obviously, we have 63 milk transporters travelling the roads across the province with 275 milk trucks. They're out every day. We deliver to 71 milk or milk products processing plants in that process.
This will give you an example of where our producers are, and you should have this. You can see that there's a very large block north of Guelph in western Ontario, and then one to the far east, but you can see that they are spread all over the province -- in the near north and far north of Ontario.
The same goes, then, for our transporters who transport that milk every day. They are spread right across the province and travelling the highways. Our plants are spread across the province as well. So we don't just operate very centrally. We are spread from the very far south to the very far north.
As far as some of the other aspects, our head office, which I essentially run, is in Mississauga, where we have all the divisions you see there: production, marketing, finance, promotion and so on. We do have people who are spread across the province to deal with our producers, field service and transportation allocation roles.
After the ice storm, we did prepare an emergency preparedness plan which we update annually, and we've just done that. Everyone has a binder and we're also going to be putting it on our Intranet for everyone to access internally. That identifies who the emergency team is, our procedures, where backup information is and where our off-site is if we require it. All that information is contained in that updated binder.
From a farm standpoint, all of our farms must have bulk tank capacity for two days of milk and cooling that milk to four degrees Celsius. Most milk farms do have a backup generator or access to one for operating the milking equipment, feeding, cleaning and cooling. The days of doing all this by hand are long past, so they do require power. Most of them do have backup generation for things like the blackout last summer. Frequent electrical storms do knock out power.
As an organization we have been delegated the authority over raw milk quality on farms, so we inspect those farms on a regular basis. We follow up any problem farms that show up and we inspect for grade A status of those farms.
Milk is picked up essentially every other day, although there are 100 that get everyday pickup; but essentially they store that for 48 hours and it's picked up. It's graded by a grader, who is the driver. He looks at appearance, smell and temperature. They seldom taste the milk these days. They do take a small sample, and those samples are collected and delivered to the government-approved lab service division, which is part of the University of Guelph. There they're tested for inhibitors, which is drug residue, somatic cell for animal condition, bacteria, freezing point and so on. And penalties are assessed to each producer or they're indeed shut off from the market if they're over certain levels.
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Again, a sample is taken at the plant of the truckload that is delivered from those individual -- because we put a number of producers on a truck and then a sample is taken at the plant to ensure there is no drug residue. Otherwise that's disposed of. Just so they know the composition of who's on the load and what the composition makeup is.
All that milk, when it's picked up at the farm, is recorded by handheld computer, as is the volume when we deliver it to the plant. We know it's so many thousand litres, who made it up and what plant we deliver it to, and that's all downloaded. So the milk volume and the quality of that milk is traceable back to the individual producer and to the individual plant. And of course plants have their own recording and tracing system, batch or time code and so on, so that when we do have incidents -- and occasionally there are incidents of product recalls -- we can track that product back through them and back to where the milk came from and where it was delivered and so on.
Each of our farms is marked with a GPS marker, and so we can isolate and track back individually by farm or by truck route or by county or by radius from a central point like a nuclear plant. In fact, we do participate in an Emergency Measures Ontario nuclear simulation that they do every couple of years, and we have in certain areas continued to collect special samples of milk around nuclear plants which have been requested in order to track that there's no residue out on crops and indeed in product.
I'm now going to turn it over to Gordon Coukell, who will talk about emergency management beyond DFO and some of our observations and recommendations.
Mr Coukell: DFO is part of Dairy Farmers of Canada, with representation on the Canadian Animal Health Coalition. The coalition recently, through funding with Agriculture Canada, has conducted three studies. These three projects were: a generic emergency management and communications plan; a plan for West Hawk Lake zone border; and recommendations on policies and protocols for Canadian animal health emergencies.
The four key areas that were identified were, of course, prevention, preparedness, response and recovery. As an industry, certainly, prevention and preparedness are the two we would like to focus on. Hopefully we don't have to respond and recover from a foreign animal disease in our case, which could be very devastating to all of agriculture.
Industry and all levels of government must be integrated and work together, sharing information, and this mustn't be just a one-way street. The five critical gaps identified in what we call the CAHEM study were:
(1) cease movement -- this is to stop the movement of cattle or products if an emergency occurs;
(2) mass depopulation -- if you've got a serious outbreak of a disease in animals;
(3) carcass disposal -- on farm or off farm;
(4) in the resulting timeframe after a problem, what's known as a welfare slaughter for market surplus conditions which may arise -- and this can often be more costly than the initial outbreak of the disease itself; and then of course, as you heard previously,
(5) compensation of unrecognized liabilities, and those questions always seem to arise.
In looking more specifically at Ontario, it's the view of Dairy Farmers of Ontario that we do need an Ontario Animal Health Act -- we are the only province in Canada without such an act -- and we need an Ontario chief veterinarian or provincial veterinarian with authority to make decisions on animal health issues as they arise, with resources to monitor disease also across species on an ongoing basis. We've had the BSE situation of a cow in Alberta about a year and a half ago, which has had a huge impact on both the dairy and beef sectors. Now, more recently, we've had the AI outbreak in the poultry industry. These things do occur, and they need some ongoing monitoring.
The other shortfall, in our view, in Ontario is the need for sufficient funding for the provincial health lab -- this is the animal health lab I'm talking about. The lab should be upgraded to what's known as a level 3; it's only at a level 2 now. Current lab practices would not contain a very contagious disease if in fact one was identified. With the current lab being used for teaching, this means students can be in that lab, have the potential to be exposed to a contagious disease and return back to area farms and actually end up spreading a disease if that in fact happened. That's a possibility that exists today and probably puts our industry at some degree of risk that many people are not aware of.
We certainly need predetermined protocols for sharing information between industry and all levels of government. Suspected outbreaks and locations of those outbreaks must be shared with industry on a confidential basis. It's not good enough to say, "We think we've got a problem in the Niagara Peninsula." We've got 300 or 400 farms in the Niagara Peninsula. We need to be much more specific in order to be able to isolate that problem. That doesn't mean we're going to talk about it in the media tomorrow morning or anything like that, but with 275 milk trucks on the road every day, we need to know whether those trucks have a potential to spread a disease or not and take the steps necessary within the industry to curtail that.
Those, Mr Chairman and members of the committee, are our comments about preparedness. We think it is a joint effort between government and industry. In many cases, we have found that maybe industry's role is not recognized by some government agencies to the extent that some commodities such as dairy are involved in the day-to-day operation and delivery of raw milk, in our case, to the general processing sector -- and the ability industry has to play a role in emergency preparedness. Thank you very much.
The Acting Chair: Thank you for the presentation. We have questions.
Mr Zimmer: On your last slide deck, "DFO Observations/Recommendations," the last bullet, "Want to share our database as required with government but not have one large, publicly accessible database;" could you just elaborate on that point a bit?
Mr Coukell: Of course, in our case we have a lot of private information as to quota holdings and the amount of money the producers are being paid each month for their milk and that type of thing, which, in my view, shouldn't be accessible to the general public. Our database, as far as the location of farms and our ability to isolate an area if there's a problem existing -- we don't have any problem with having it in such a way that it can be tied into a provincial database in those cases where it needs to be. But all our information that we have couldn't just be turned over for public information.
Mr Zimmer: This is my last question. On the slide deck "Emergency Management," with five critical gaps identified, the fifth one, "compensation of unrecognized liabilities" -- I understand that thought, but could you elaborate on what kind of vehicle you might see that would satisfy this concern of compensation for unrecognized liabilities?
Mr Coukell: I think there again, in listening to the previous presenters here, talking about these things partway through an emergency is not the time to do it. If you look in the agricultural and certainly the dairy industry, cease movement of livestock and you've impacted a person's livelihood in a different way. If you have to dispose of milk, there's really nothing in place now to say that, other than that individual producer, if he has a problem, someone ends up paying for that. As it translates into, say, a foreign animal disease that is quite contagious, you might have 50 or 100 farms involved with not only the problem of disposing of it but where you dispose of that product.
Mr Zimmer: I understand that, but have you got any thoughts on a process or a vehicle or a mechanism to work through that exercise of compensation for unrecognized liabilities?
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Mr Coukell: We haven't gone into that. That's part of the discussions at the national level, looking at some kind of a self-insurance package. Some in the poultry industry have gone down that road; the cattle industry has not at this point in time. I think those are the kind of discussions that we need to have with government and other commodities.
Mrs Sandals: If I could look, first of all, at the slide where you're talking about an Ontario chief veterinarian with authority to make decisions on animal health issues, what we're interested in is the emergency legislation and the powers that currently exist in legislation, where there are gaps and what powers would possibly be needed. I'm wondering, on the issue of a provincial vet or Ontario chief veterinarian, however you would like to designate that, what are the powers that you see lacking? You talk about the authority to make decisions. What sort of decisions or powers do you see there?
Mr Coukell: The current situation is that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency does that in Ontario. We've been involved, not with large outbreaks, but we did have a case of TB on a farm. It was fortunate it was only one farm, because a lot of things happened there that convinced us that we weren't prepared for a major outbreak of a foreign animal disease. Part of it is just the lack of a decision-making process. Nobody today, until the federal -- I'm not being critical of the federal process but they tend to want to do all the testing and make sure they're absolutely positive that it's positive instead of taking that first preventive step and containing it. Yes, if it costs a few dollars and I dump a tank or two of milk and I find out everything is fine afterwards, it's a lot better than finding out that we've just spread a disease to 50 other farms. So we don't have that ability to react.
Mrs Sandals: No one has the ability to step in sooner, before you get to this "I'm super-duper sure" level that you would get to get to the CFIA. Is that the concern?
Mr Coukell: That's correct, yes.
Mrs Sandals: So that's something that we need to be looking at provincially and clicking in sooner, perhaps.
Mr Coukell: On an ongoing basis of monitoring the total livestock and poultry population to make sure that there isn't something happening out there as well; we don't have that capability either.
Mrs Sandals: OK. If I could go to the previous slide, what you've identified as critical gaps in the Canadian animal health emergency measures, in my lay language, I would look at "cease movement" as quarantine and "mass depopulation" as slaughter in order to control an outbreak.
Mr Coukell: Correct.
Mrs Sandals: "Carcass disposal" is pretty clear. Are all of those, under current legislation, federal areas of jurisdiction?
Mr Coukell: Yes, they are.
Mrs Sandals: And there is no authority within Ontario to kick in any of those before the federal legislation would kick in.
Mr Coukell: That's correct.
Mrs Sandals: Do you want to see that remain at the federal level?
Mr Coukell: There has to be more coordination, in my mind. I happen to sit on the Canadian Animal Health Coalition. Provincial governments sit there, provincial veterinarians from other provinces. Ontario doesn't participate at that level.
Mrs Sandals: Oh, really? Because we don't have a chief veterinarian, so how can you --
The Acting Chair: We do have a chief veterinarian.
Mrs Sandals: There is a provincial vet, but for some reason they don't have the authority to be at that level.
Mr Coukell: No. There is a person designated as the Ontario chief veterinarian but no act to give him any authority, or very little.
Mrs Sandals: Within the federal legislation, then, do you see gaps? One of the things that keeps coming up is this issue of carcass disposal. Even if you've ordered quarantine and slaughter, what is the mechanism around carcass disposal?
Mr Coukell: This is where the preparedness plans fall down. You can order X number of head disposed of, but then in most areas, what do you do next? That hasn't been worked through. There are no arrangements with municipal waste disposal or large tracts of land where you can bury these animals without threatening the water quality, and those kinds of things. You can't do that halfway through the process, or shouldn't have to do it halfway through the process. Try to get it in place before we get there. Those are the things that need to be talked about and planned, both provincially and nationally.
Mrs Sandals: Is that an issue of preplanning the exact spot, if we were thinking about mass burial of carcasses, for example? Is this predetermining the exact spot, or is it, given the particular circumstances of the location of the outbreak, having the authority to quickly designate the appropriate spot?
Mr Coukell: I think probably the latter, because you don't know where this is going to strike. There's no point in having a spot in Saskatchewan if it's in southwestern Ontario that we need it, but at least to have gone through the thought process and the discussion that, if it happens, these are options and here's the authority to get there quickly, not having endless meetings to try and find out the right people to talk to and come to the conclusions you need to come to.
Mrs Sandals: Thank you very much.
The Acting Chair: MPP Broten to wrap up.
Ms Broten: I'm wondering, with respect to the specific areas of concern that you've raised, whether, in your opinion, there are other jurisdictions we should look to that have developed some best practices that respond directly to the issues that you've raised, whether it's quarantine, depopulation or information sharing. We know there are other jurisdictions that have a chief veterinarian with the powers, but on some of the other more specific issues, I'm wondering if you can point us to jurisdictions that we might look toward.
Mr Coukell: Not really. We looked at a lot of jurisdictions. Our group visited Europe following the BSE and the foot and mouth and actually built some of the studies around the mistakes that were made there. It's an area where, in our mind, there needs to be a lot of discussion and a lot of coordination, to start with. I don't think anybody, to my knowledge, at this point in time has the perfect plan that we can just pick off the shelf somewhere. I think the industry -- the CFIA has been involved and is part of the coalition as well. We know the right people to talk to. It's a matter of getting those people all together and getting serious about being prepared for an emergency.
Ms Broten: Having just had the opportunity to go on Agriculture 101, organized by our colleague John Wilkinson, I certainly saw first-hand some of the measures the industry is taking on -- biosecurity and other things -- on the farm. For all of us, it brought home the issues and challenges being faced by the industry. So thank you very much.
The Acting Chair: The final question. MPP Kormos?
Mr Kormos: Very briefly. I come from down in Niagara where, as you know, we've got dairy farmers as well as cattle producers. They've been whacked big time, cattle producers across Canada, but let's talk about our Ontario ones. Which of your recommendations -- because it seems to me that what we're talking about would also equip us to defend ourselves from the embargo put on Canadian cattle, for instance, which many of the cattle producers I speak to speak of as entirely unfair, and maybe it's just because the federal government was gutless around the issue. But which of your recommendations would have protected Canadian cattle producers, in terms of saying, "Look, we've got this security. We have this management issue under control, such that you don't have to be fearful," and we can present a strong, rational argument against the embargo?
Mr Coukell: I think the West Hawk Lake zoning proposal is designed to do that, rather than all of Canada being protected. If that zone was in place and the livestock movements monitored -- what's being talking about there -- then at least you might have half the country that was still involved with trade. If that cow had been in Alberta, maybe all of eastern Canada could have been separate. That's the idea of the zone. That's probably the only one there that would have had an impact on the trade, because you fall into a different category when you've got a foreign animal disease. There are other things that kick in and, as we know now, a lot of politics kicks in as well.
The Acting Chair: Thank you very much for the thorough presentation. On behalf of the committee, thank you for making time. It's ironic that as you came here to discuss emergency preparedness, we have a lot of Toronto's streets downtown closed off, because I guess there's been a hostage situation or something. So it just shows the relevance of this committee's deliberations.
Thank you very much. We'll recess until 1 pm.
The committee recessed from 1210 to 1306.
ONTARIO TRUCKING ASSOCIATION
The Acting Chair: The committee will come to order. We have two presentations this afternoon. We have an additional presentation, after the Ontario Trucking Association, from the Public Protection Action Committee, Ian Hood and Steve Poulos. That will follow this deputation by the Ontario Trucking Association.
Here from the Ontario Trucking Association we have Dave Bradley, who is the president; Barrie Montague, the vice-president; and Doug Switzer, manager of government relations. Gentlemen, I think you know the routine. You can take up as much of the time as you want to make a presentation. You have approximately a half-hour. If you want to leave some of that time for questions or comments from members of the committee, feel free to do so. As you know, the mandate of this committee is to review all provincial government statutes in terms of emergency preparedness for the purpose of writing a report and draft legislation to try and meet the emergency management gaps that exist in the province of Ontario. You can begin; Mr Bradley, I guess.
Mr David Bradley: Thank you very much, Mr Chairman and members of the committee. We were delighted to receive the call to appear to provide you with some of our thoughts and commentary. Obviously the province has experienced more than its fair share of crises and emergencies over the last few years in particular, and the trucking industry has either been caught in some of those emergencies or, in addition, has played a significant role in terms of not just keeping the economy moving, but ensuring that medical supplies, equipment etc get through to the people who need them when all else fails.
Clearly a lot of work has gone on in the last couple of years. We've had occasion to speak with Dr Young, for example, on numerous occasions. Boy, I sure wouldn't have wanted his job last year, given all the things he and his folks had to deal with. I think they've done a very credible job under the circumstances. However, we have questions, some things we're not clear about. I'm not saying you would necessarily be able to answer them, but they are things you might be able to pass along to the ministries involved. We also have some observations that we're able to make based on being involved in some of these situations over the last few years.
If you'll bear with me for just a few moments, I'd like to go through them one by one. These aren't necessarily in any priority order, but they are things that seem to crop up continually that cut across -- it doesn't matter what kind of emergency it is. Then we'll talk specifically, at the end, to some of the border issues as well.
I guess as an overriding comment, while we have been called upon to assist in different emergency situations -- when I say "we," I mean the industry, carriers, and the association -- it often seems to us to be an afterthought. Maybe things have changed, but our experience has been that when a crisis hits, and if food, equipment or supplies need to get through, there seems to be a good system in place for collecting the kind of materials or supplies that are required, but that the thought of, "How do we get those things where they need to be?" can be an afterthought. As a result, it puts pressure, not only on the overall situation, but also on our industry and us, as an association, in terms of being able to respond in sort of efficient, effective and methodical way -- "Things need to get somewhere tomorrow. Find us a truck. Find us a carrier" -- those kinds of things.
As an overall comment, it's important to keep goods movement in mind, whatever those goods happen to be in a particular situation or whatever is required. And if there is a way to establish some sort of formal communication link or a process whereby we knew what we would be called upon to do in various situations, I think that would be helpful.
There are some other things that are perhaps more practical and that always seem to crop up. One issue would be the matter of suspensions and exemptions from operating regulations. Look at, for example, the ice storm that occurred in the Ottawa Valley area a few years ago, or at the border situation in the weeks immediately following 9/11, where trucks could not move at their normal speeds, either because the weather wasn't permitting and yet they were taking generators to Ottawa, that sort of thing, or because of the day-long backups at the border. I can recall a situation during 9/11 -- it's become a thing of urban myth -- where an enforcement officer was walking along the several-mile-long lineup of trucks and was writing tickets for truck drivers who were stuck in the line for being out of hours of service. There was nowhere for these guys to go, they were inching along in the lineup, and yet they were getting ticketed.
When we would contact the ministry about these sorts of things, we would get a response, and usually the most practical response. But what we've asked for, and what there doesn't appear to be a mechanism for, is the ability in emergency situations to provide temporary exemptions or suspensions of some of those regulations. The most obvious ones are the truck driver hours of service. If something has to get somewhere and it may take longer than what the rules presently allow, that driver and that company shouldn't be put in the position of being in violation of the law. Truck weights and dimensions as well: If you've got a specialty piece of equipment that needs to be moved and there isn't either time or the mechanism for getting all of the appropriate permits in place, again, that company runs the risk of running afoul of the law and taking on a large liability.
Usually what occurs is that we get sort of a nudge and a wink and they'll to ahead and do that, and the government rightfully is concerned about its own liability of saying, "We're just going to ignore the law." They can't say that. So I think there needs to be some mechanism in place to try to deal with those sorts of situations. It's complicated somewhat in transportation because trucking is of split jurisdiction: there is provincial regulation and federal regulation, often the same sort of thing. So we need to make our way through that.
Municipalities also have their own set of rules and bylaws: truck bans, weight limitations, those sorts of things. We believe we need to look at some mechanism to supersede those so that we can in emergency situations respond to whatever is required and not be running afoul of the law.
We also know that certainly since 9/11 the municipalities have been compelled to come up with emergency response plans, and we have been involved in, I would say, a very few of those where we've been consulted, and we have more questions than we have comments because we don't know what the essence of those plans is, we don't know what our responsibility is, what would be expected of truckers in some of these cases, and we don't know, therefore, how effective the plans would be.
Liability insurance is another issue. In fact, the very few companies that are still writing trucking insurance now -- and since 9/11 those have dwindled rapidly, particularly if you've got any US exposure -- have started to write terrorism clauses into insurance. Again, if you're moving essential supplies during the fallout from a terrorist attack, your insurance may be null and void or may be prohibitively costly. That's something as well that we are uncomfortable with.
Route planning: We're not aware of what the emergency evacuation routes would be in any particular communities in Ontario, or whether they exist or not. It's certainly not the same as when you travel in Florida, for example, and you've got the hurricane evacuation routes. We're not aware of anything similar in Ontario.
A major problem for us is the cleanup of crashes or highway incidents. These can tend to drag on interminably, it would seem, at high cost to the economy and to the discomfort and perhaps danger of the motoring public who are caught in these sorts of situations.
Barrie Montague has worked over the last couple of years with the Red Tape Commission in trying to come up with recommendations for resolving some of these problems. There was a report from that committee; we have no idea whether anything from that report has been formally adopted.
One of the big problems, as far as we can see, and we still don't feel it's been addressed, is who's in charge at an accident scene. You've got local police, you've got OPP, you've got Ministry of Transportation, Ministry of the Environment, the fire department and who knows who else, and there's no clear delineation of the chain of command in these situations. I think that impedes the ability to move some of these things away more quickly.
We found out a couple of years ago -- ironically enough, during a period where some truck drivers were protesting outside of the fuel depots across the top of Toronto -- how quickly our fuel supplies can dwindle in Ontario. I remember a panic situation in terms of the hospitals not having enough fuel and that sort of thing. In this day and age, when you're watching what's happening in the Middle East and whatnot, this is of grave concern to us. We can't be of much help in keeping the economy or getting supplies to people if we don't have the fuel.
In the United States, the US federal government has a significant pool of fuel that it owns. We're not sure if any sort of contingency exists here in Ontario, where the government has a stockpile of fuel for its own purposes that can be used in these emergency situations; if not, we think that's something that should be looked at.
The border obviously is something that we've been at the front lines of. While there were problems at the border prior to 9/11, certainly they've been accentuated since. There have been all kinds of effort aimed at trying to make our borders not only more secure but more efficient. I must say, however, I think we're losing that battle. I think the momentum has been lost. I think there are things afoot, some of it being regulations emanating out of the United States, some of it being simply the capacity of our infrastructure to deal with some of these problems, and I see the situation now getting potentially worse, as opposed to better.
Some of the things that are being suggested we don't agree with. There's been a lot of discussion about marshalling yards, somewhere to truck the parks. We think that's an unworkable, archaic situation that flies in the face of some of the measures that have been introduced or are in the process of being implemented to speed the movement of trucks. We would agree that, perhaps in an emergency situation, if the US went to code red and those trucks that don't have the appropriate designation or security credentials to cross the border are starting to back up, maybe they need to be temporarily moved to a marshalling yard, but we don't think the vehicles that have undergone the appropriate security checks and have all the designations should be stopped. Indeed, the one thing the Canadian and US governments agree on is that those carriers that have those credentials would continue to move, even in code red.
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We are very concerned about the inertia that has arisen at some of our busiest border crossings and our ability to not only move efficiently but move safely through communities. Windsor is perhaps the most glaring example. It was two and a half years ago that the then Premier and Prime Minister agreed to a $350-million package for a short- and medium-term solution to Windsor. Two and a half years later, we are nowhere near a solution. We believe some leadership is required there.
This is also important because, for example, in Windsor, where the Ambassador Bridge is the world's single largest gateway for trade, it is the only crossing of any size in that city. Heaven forbid, but if a terrorist attack were to take that bridge out, I can't imagine how the Ontario economy would be able to recuperate from that, given that most of our exports cross through that gateway.
We need an alternative. We need to look at, in this day and age, how we respond quickly, more quickly than in the past. We shouldn't denigrate things like the Environmental Assessment Act, but I think we need to look at how we can expedite the situation when it's of utmost importance to the province.
We need to ensure that we have adequate funding for not only the approaches to the borders but for the economic corridors that lead to those border crossings but would also be our major routes for transporting military and humanitarian aid and the like. We're not sure. Again, maybe there are, but we're not sure what the response plans are for the approaches to the border were a terrorist attack to occur and those sorts of things. Again, we think that there needs to be some improved communication.
Those are just observations. We have questions and not all the answers, but we're willing to play whatever role the province calls upon us to play as an industry; we always do. But we believe that we certainly could do a better job if there was a more delineated plan and we knew what our expectations were and that, indeed, in doing so, we were not going to put either ourselves or the province or the public at a greater liability.
Thanks very much.
The Acting Chair: Thank you, Mr Bradley. Questions from the MPPs. We'll start with MPP Sandals.
Mrs Sandals: Thank you very much. You've raised a lot of issues here, and I thank you for drawing those to our attention. It's very helpful to have you enumerate the issues. I'm almost overwhelmed by where we should begin.
We're looking specifically at legislative powers during an emergency, and you've mentioned the whole issue around an emergency override on the normal trucking regulations and the reasons, quite clearly, why one might want to do that. If there were provincial powers to have an emergency override on some of the regulations that you've enumerated, how encumbered would you still be by Canadian regulations? How many of the situations that you've outlined are federal regulation, and where does the provincial regulation --
Mr Bradley: Yes, that is a very complex area, and I'm not a constitutional lawyer so it's difficult to say. But the situation is this: Ontario maintains regulatory oversight over what's called intra-provincial trucking. That's trucking that doesn't cross the provincial border. The federal government has constitutional authority over what's called extra-provincial trucking, those trucks that cross borders. The rules, while they're not perfectly in harmony, have a lot of parallel and compatibility.
Back in the 1950s the federal government of Canada, while it maintained constitutional authority, delegated the administration of the federal trucking rules to the provinces. So while the federal government ultimately has the constitutional authority to set the rules, it's the provinces that enforce them. I think there would probably have to be something in the federal Motor Vehicle Transport Act giving the provinces the authority. I assume you would want to have a joint federal-provincial protocol around how to deal with these things, but I don't think it's insurmountable, and we shouldn't try to make it more complex than it is.
Mrs Sandals: But we keep running into this problem of the overlap of jurisdiction.
You've also talked in various ways about priority goods, given whatever the emergency is. You've talked about access to fuel supplies. Among the emergency powers that have been suggested to us are powers that have to do with the rationing of critical supplies, and I presume one could extend that to the transportation and movement of critical supplies. How would the trucking industry react to emergency powers which designate, as you say, that these generators, food, whatever the good or service is -- or goods in your case -- in some ways are the ones that have priority access on the highways or priority access to fuel in a time of fuel shortage?
Mr Bradley: I think the trucking industry would respond to that by saying that, given the circumstances, that would be entirely appropriate. The key is developing a plan that's fair, equitable and practicable. Given that, I think in an emergency situation our industry would be more than supportive of the law of the land. But we do agree conceptually with the fact that during an emergency some things may need to move and have priority over other things. That's a fact. It has happened in every emergency we can think of. So I think to codify that and put some protocol around that would be appropriate.
Mrs Sandals: One of the things which you didn't mention that has been raised as a concern by some of the other emergency responders is that one of the forms of emergency you may be looking at is related to hazardous materials, and in many cases it's the movement of hazardous materials. I know, because I happen to have a riding the 401 passes through, and one of the concerns of my local responders is that they don't know what's going by on the 401, yet they're the people who have to respond to the emergency on the 401 and, by definition, they never quite know what it is they're responding to. Do you have any suggestions to make around the communications around what hazardous materials may be involved in a particular emergency situation?
Mr Bradley: Mr Montague here has played a major role in terms of trying to bring common sense to the regulations surrounding the transportation of dangerous goods, so I'll let him respond.
Mr Barrie Montague: The laws with regard to the movement and transportation -- it's a federal regulation, a federal act, which Ontario has adopted in one-page mirror legislation. I'm surprised that the other responders would say what they are saying. The whole purpose of the transportation of dangerous goods regulations is to deal exactly with that issue in terms of the way the vehicle has to display the appropriate placards to explain exactly what is in that vehicle. Similarly, the paperwork that has to accompany the vehicle is very specific in what it has to contain. It also requires that they have what is called an emergency response guide. Actually, we don't have it here but the Americans do it and most trucking companies carry a copy of the emergency response guide, which all emergency responders should have, and I'm sure they do. It actually explains exactly what the risks are with that particular dangerous good related to the United Nations number. It's fairly clear. It tells exactly what actions they should take -- the evacuation procedures, the danger from emissions and all of that kind of thing.
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So I'm very surprised to hear you say they don't know what's going through. Unless they're suggesting -- God forbid -- some kind of pre-notification --
Mrs Sandals: No, and I don't think that was the suggestion. It was more, "In the midst of the crisis, are we sure we've got the right information and that we have it fast enough?" I would think that there would be particular concern in the case where the trucker has actually been injured.
Mr Montague: Again, that's the point of having the vehicle properly placarded. You've seen the vehicles. You've seen what those decals are on the outside. That is a very specific decal for a specific hazard. So again, I can't comment any more. I'm just surprised that they would say they don't have adequate information. If they don't, then this is something they should take up, I think, with Transport Canada. They sit on the appropriate committees that deal with these things. If they really have a concern that the current regulations don't provide them with the appropriate support, then I think they should take that up with Transport Canada.
Mrs Sandals: It may simply be a case that when you're dealing with major transportation corridors, you're dealing with a lot of different emergency responders with varying degrees of sophistication, because in a lot of cases you're running through rural areas.
Mr Bradley: That's right, and I think as well -- and this is not to play the bogeyman -- with some of the problems we're having at the border, with the backup of trucks at the border, we mention in our notes that there has been some attention, clearly, to trying to avoid, let's say, a terrorist attack on a bridge. Particularly where those bridges are privately owned, there has been a lot of interest in terms of protecting the asset. I can't respond one way or another, but I'm just not so sure that the same sort of consideration has gone into the situation if you have an attack or an explosion in the lineup, where you've got a chain reaction. You've got trucks hauling different types of materials. That just compounds the issue.
Mrs Sandals: The interaction.
Mr Bradley: In fact, I can tell you that at one of the busier border crossings one of our member companies, which is a very reputable, safe operator hauling dangerous goods, is in a sense breaking the law in the local municipality by taking the trucks through the city as opposed to having those trucks sitting up in the lineup at the border, because they're deathly afraid of a rear-end collision and the chain reaction that would start. It's a safer situation to be breaking the bylaws and going a different route to the bridge than what's posted in the municipality. They're doing it for all the right reasons, but they obviously feel enormously exposed by this. But again, it comes back to the fact that we need to get that traffic flowing.
In Sarnia recently, there have been some issues, and we're trying to deal with those through speed limits and the like, but these are all Band-Aids until we in this province have the infrastructure that we need to allow trade to continue to move.
Mrs Sandals: Thank you very much. You've been very helpful.
Ms Broten: As we look at the tools necessary for the province to deal with emergencies, one of the things that we've been looking at is what tools have been made available in other jurisdictions. Some of those things include the right to demand or request some assistance from the private sector, the right to ration goods, the right to close your borders, limit transport of, for example, livestock into your province, and to demand information from the private sector that would assist in terms of managing a crisis situation.
I was wondering whether or not you had familiarity with any protocols, as we've been talking about today, if the province did decide to do that, whether we could establish a protocol, whether trucking associations in the provinces that have those types of powers have those similar protocols or whether you have any familiarity with industries across the country?
Mr Bradley: We're such a highly regulated industry, again, so long as things were fair and practical, that I think most of my members would hope Ontario already has some of those powers, if they don't.
I am aware that this might not be right on topic and the other two gentlemen may have something closer, but in the United States, it seems to me, rightly or wrongly, that the municipalities, particularly in the post-9/11 era, have access to much more funding from the federal government -- or let's say senior level of government, just to be fair -- for ensuring that these sorts of things are in place. In fact, I know with the federal highway trust fund, unless a municipality has an environmental plan, an emergency response plan and those sorts of things, they can't even apply for federal highway aid. So there's a big stick that's being used there.
I can't think of whether we've been banned from hauling anything. You've got the Michigan situation now, where there's a lot of politics being played too. Clearly there are some things that they're going to demand: that those trucks demonstrate they're not hauling radioactive, or if they are that they face severe penalties.
Ms Broten: But certainly members of your trucking association would transport goods and livestock and all various things across provincial borders, and some of the provinces, for example, have the right to warrantless searches, the right to demand information from the private sector.
Mr Bradley: Again, I think when you say the private sector, you'd be hard-pressed to find an industry more regulated than trucking. So a lot of this stuff is already there. The officers can ask for just about anything these days. That's the law and that's been the safety imperative.
I think one of the things you would have to consider in that regard would be more from an international perspective: You'd have to take NAFTA into consideration and all those sorts of things as well. Again, I think the plan has to fit the crisis, and the worst possible events will obviously require clear and strong action by governments to protect their citizens.
Ms Broten: Certainly what we heard from the CFIB and their membership base was not dissimilar to yours. We want business to operate in the province and we are prepared to do what it takes to abide by the rules we need to be able to get our goods back and forth across the provincial borders, but most significantly, international borders.
Mr Bradley: Yes. That's our bread and butter.
Ms Broten: Thank you very much.
The Acting Chair: The last question is from MPP Zimmer.
Mr Zimmer: Does the association have any position on the idea of mandatory recruitment of transportation assets to move fuel, food, people, construction materials etc in the event of a declared crisis, transportation assets obviously being trucks and stuff?
Mr Bradley: To date, I think we've got a rather stellar record of providing those sorts of things free of charge or trying to get the fuel compensated or those sorts of things. Again, it would be dependent upon the situation. Obviously, if we were in a warlike situation it may not be beyond the realm of possibilities that people would be commandeered, that just as you're crossing through northern Ontario and there's a forest fire, you can be deputized there on the roadside and the next thing you know you're fighting a forest fire. So again, our world view is a lot broader than it was before.
I think, though, that there needs to be some care and attention paid to what the emergency is. Our members aren't in the business of providing service for free or they won't be in business for very long. But again, if it were part of a crisis plan and we were consulted with, we knew what our role was and we knew the burden was being shared across the industry as best as possible, those sorts of things, yes, absolutely; I don't think any of that is out of the question.
Mr Zimmer: I guess it would help, then, to have that plan in place before an event rather than after.
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Mr Bradley: Absolutely. In every crisis that has occurred in the last three years, at some point or another some government agency or some relief agency has contacted my office, saying, "Help." By that point you're scurrying around or they're calling around. They don't know who to call. They don't even know that OTA exists. So I think it would be much better to have something in place, as best you can.
Our industry is also a very fractured industry and not the most organized industry in the world. There are a lot of players, so I don't want to profess that I can snap my fingers and just make things happen. That speaks to the need for a plan. The more information we have upfront, the better.
I have to say that while there's been a lot of work, we're not aware of the final outcome of a lot of these discussions. We don't know if there are some of the emergency plans that we're calling for. Maybe they exist; we're just not aware of them, which leads us to think that perhaps goods movement once again hasn't been considered.
We were being asked to take supplies into hospitals during the SARS crisis. So our drivers would go into the hospitals and drop stuff off. Then they'd go on a delivery somewhere else and they'd be asked, "Where have you been?" "I've been down at the hospital." "Well, you can't come in here."
There were real problems. Of course, we were all learning as we were going, but we've been through it once. Hopefully, we can address some of these things in the future.
The Acting Chair: Just a couple of questions. As you know, Dr Jim Cairns did an evaluation of the huge, significant time delay with the GO Transit accidents at Union Station to see how they can facilitate the investigation of an accident scene to facilitate the movement of people on GO Transit. Do you think it would be helpful if we asked Dr Cairns to perhaps comment on the possibility of doing the same type of examination of the delays that happen? I've asked for information, for instance, on the seven-hour delay on the 401 earlier in August. I think the report that was issued by Dr Cairns last week demonstrated that they can reduce the time down to two hours, reduce that significant impact on people and also respect the scene of the accident. Would that be helpful?
Mr Bradley: Certainly. But I think someone, perhaps as a precursor to that, whether it's this committee, should take a look at the recommendations coming out of the Red Tape Commission, which spent a couple of years looking at all of these issues with the various stakeholders, and find out what the heck has happened with this. It may need a fresh look.
At the same time, this might be an issue that just requires some leadership, or for leadership to be established. My understanding is that the commission came up with some useful suggestions. Certainly we sat on the committee and had every opportunity to bring our matters to the table; we just don't know what's happened with it. We suspect not much, because we haven't seen a change. I would say I'd welcome anything that would finally get us to a better situation than what we've got now.
Barrie, do you have something to add?
Mr Montague: During these conversations it became more my understanding, anyway, as a layman on this from the police perspective, that today they have a lot of technology they could use to speed up the investigation at the scene, particularly when there's a death involved, because that's usually when there's a really serious delay. It takes a long time for them to do this, but there is technology available today which enables them to do it a lot quicker.
I don't know whether all the police forces have that technology, if it's very expensive or if it requires training. Is it, again, the classic, "This is a resource problem. I'm the chief of police somewhere and I'm not going to spend the money on this because I'm going to use this technology once in the next 10 years"? I don't know the answer. I'm just posing that as a question.
The Acting Chair: The only thing is, the Cairns report doesn't deal with technology, it deals with protocol, and they've reduced the time with his recommendations. And it's not a resource issue; it's basically a procedural issue.
Mr Bradley: The biggest single issue is that we're not sure anybody is in charge. That's protocol.
The Acting Chair: Yes, and we've heard that before.
So in terms of the Red Tape Commission, we'll have research see what the recommendations were and what happened to them.
Just to let you know, the deliberations of the Red Tape Commission -- for instance, the decision-making process -- were not subject to freedom of information. I tried to get some of that information as a member of the opposition and it was like Hydro -- exempt from freedom of information. It didn't report to the Legislature either, it was a commission that existed somewhere in limbo, so we had difficulty tracking down their decisions and their processes. We'll try to track that down.
The third thing is fuel supply. We'll also ask research to find out whether the province of Ontario does stockpile fuel. That's something I don't know and I've never heard discussed. We'll see if we can get an answer to that.
Thank you so much for taking time and helping this committee in its deliberations.
PUBLIC PROTECTION
ACTION COMMITTEE
GLOBAL WARMING
PREVENTION TECHNOLOGIES INC.
The Acting Chair: The next and final item is the Public Protection Action Committee, Mr Ian Hood and Mr Steve Poulos. You have a half-hour. If you could make your presentation out of that half-hour, and if you want to leave time for questions or comments from the members of the committee, that would be welcome. As you know, we're mandated to look at the status of Ontario's emergency management statutes, and we're looking for ways of contributing to enhancing Ontario's emergency management protections, and doing that through a report and potential legislation. You can proceed now.
Mr Ian Hood: Thank you, Mike and the committee, for allowing us to come before you to address the issues of security of energy. Before you, you have a very comprehensive document that goes into a lot of specifics that have never been made public. There are a lot of documents in there that certainly show that the nuclear industry is in very serious trouble. With the idea in mind of getting rid of coal-fired generation, it doesn't make a bit of sense because the most important thing is reliability of energy, especially if there is a terrorist attack. There's a lot of information in there associated with coal-fired generation and also the pipeline that they're proposing. TransCanada PipeLines is considering natural gas as a chief source of energy for the province by eliminating coal-fired generation. Taking a look at the nuclear considerations here, we're in very deep trouble, to say the least.
Those documents are self-explanatory, but coming straight to the point, the bottom line is simply this: The amount of information about the terrorist scenarios in this province is very far-reaching. A number have been identified. We don't have the resources or manpower, and it goes on and on from there as far as dealing with the issues. I'm talking about CSIS and a number of others.
One of the most important documents in this particular consideration is a letter from Colin Kenny, the chairperson for the Senate committee on national security and defence. Colin is saying --
Mr Zimmer: Where is it in the package?
Mr Hood: It's right here, sir. He sent me a copy of a --
Mr Zimmer: What page?
Mr Hood: I believe page 9 or 10.
Mr Zimmer: Just give me a second.
Mr Hood: It's right here. I'll get it for you.
Mr Zimmer: Just tell me where it is so I can --
Mr Hood: It should be on --
Mr Zimmer: Isn't the package numbered?
Mr Hood: Unfortunately, the time frame in regard to the issues associated with getting down here was within an hour, so we had to put this together with a group of individuals and people. There it is, right there.
Mr Zimmer: An e-mail.
Mr Hood: Yes, an e-mail to me from Colin. At the very bottom: "As to his doubts that Canada is a target for terrorists, our committee has yet to receive an intelligence briefing that did not warn us that we were a target and sooner or later an attack was coming."
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That comes from one of the most credible sources in Canada, and he's respected around the world. The intelligence community has said time and time again that Canada has a very serious problem, and that letter from Colin Kenny is a serious document, to say the least. That went to the Toronto Star, and he sent me a copy.
The bottom line of all this is simply that security of energy is absolutely crucial. To get rid of coal-fired generation doesn't make a bit of sense, Mike, because it's the most secure energy source we've got, without question. If terrorists want to attack that, it would take a tremendous amount of explosives to bring it down. Not only that, it would be only one plant and there are five now working. When you take those plants out and think about a natural gas pipeline, 2,000 miles that can't be protected, and what happened in California last week --
Mr Zimmer: Mr Chair, it seems to me that we're here to investigate or look into what recommendations we should make to respond to an emergency that develops. With all due respect, what the speaker is getting into now are political and philosophical decisions as to what is the better energy source. What we're interested in is what happens at the end of the crisis.
Mr Hood: I can say this to you --
The Acting Chair: Just one second, Mr Hood. Could you just try to focus on the Ontario government's ability to protect assets: being ready to protect these assets in an emergency and are we prepared to do so prudently by existing statute?
Mr Hood: Mike, we don't have the resources, the manpower -- and it goes on from there. Again, securing energy is important and the legislation that's necessary to give you the powers to see that this is in place is essential -- and I say "essential." To oversee the nuclear industry as far as waste scenarios and all the other considerations is also very important.
Your committee is the front line, one of the most important parts of dealing with the problems in Canada and in Ontario. I can assure you that you need money and you need a great deal of resources. You need more than what's around this table. You need a great number of research people and you've got to get CSIS and all the other people who are involved to co-operate totally -- and their budgets are not being met. They don't have the resources. And the security problem here in the province is very serious, to say the least. What you see here is nothing compared to what I will provide for you, including everything from A to Z in regard to cross-border intelligence, the situation at the border, if you want. But you have to have the power to make sure the energy supply is secure. More than anything, if there's a serious attack in this province, based on what could occur here because of all the information, if they attack our energy supply -- you know that a short time ago there was a serious arrest in regard to immigration. They went into this man's apartment and found Pickering up on his wall, and he was taking lessons at the island airport. We have been living in sort of, "Well, if it happens, it happens." We've got to go well beyond that.
I know more than anything, Mike, that you and this committee care and want to do something, but you have to have the information. You have to rationalize basically where the problems lie. The reports you have in front of you show that the reliability factors are important. The nuclear energy commission and others have to come back to you and say, "Look, we have a problem. This is what we have to do." What's necessary is for you to get as much information as possible in regard to issues of national security and the province as far as reliability of energy.
When I got into this other issue about coal-fired generation and so on, it was because of one issue: We have to have secure energy sources. You guys around the table can do more to secure the most valuable asset we have, and that's energy. You've got to have those powers. They've got to come to you and explain what they're doing to secure that. I can tell you that I deal with Jake Epp and the rest of them on an ongoing basis, and they're in a panic state, to say the least. Go to Three Mile Island and take a look at what they've got there compared to what you've got at Pickering, in light of the hundreds and hundreds of terrorists that have been identified -- I'll give you the list if you want it.
The Acting Chair: Ian, as you know, we have had various representatives of atomic energy, the nuclear commission and the Ministry of Energy here talking about that very thing. Certainly you brought more attention to that. We need to get that information, and that's why we brought them here to do that.
I wonder if Mr Poulos could talk about Global Warming Prevention Technologies, because we also did have Professor Smit from the University of Guelph talking about the need to look at climate change and how it will impact on emergency preparedness. That's why I was also very interested, given our time situation, in hearing from Steve Poulos about this other aspect that the committee is dealing with.
Mr Steve Poulos: OK. Very briefly, as you know, there are approximately five major categories affecting climate change. Global Warming Prevention Technologies is addressing the major and immediate energy emissions coming from coal-fired plants, as well as waste, as addressed by the trucking committee, and the new technologies to convert waste into energy with a 100% recycling component.
These actual issues were the result of about a decade of planning, and the security issues resulted out of them. GWPT is actively involved in providing security technologies as well.
Perhaps what Ian wants to get to is the way to both prevent and address an actual incursion. If you want to strictly address incursions, then perhaps that's a separate presentation altogether.
The Acting Chair: Questions? MPP Broten?
Ms Broten: Mr Hood, can you tell me who the membership is of the Public Protection Action Committee?
Mr Hood: There are two here and a number of others, but because of issues of nondisclosure, we get into some difficulties, Mike.
Ms Broten: So you couldn't provide us with a membership list?
Mr Hood: Well, let me put it to you this way: Some of the people who are involved are from the United States and there are a number here in Canada. But the bottom line is strictly the paper and the security we can provide. I can assure you that we can give you the most sensitive information -- FBI, CIA; you name it, you can have it -- and I can assure you we can deliver.
Ms Broten: How many members are there?
Mr Hood: Again, I can't get into that.
Ms Broten: You can't tell me how many members there are?
Mr Hood: Well, the problem is that we're dealing with people who have one idea in mind, and that is that even sitting here in front of the TV is a security risk.
Ms Broten: How long have you been the chair?
Mr Hood: Three and a half years.
Ms Broten: Were there other chairs before you?
Mr Hood: No.
Ms Broten: How long has the organization been in existence?
Mr Hood: In various forms it goes back quite a way, but this particular part of it, three and a half years.
Ms Broten: And you've been the chair the entire time?
Mr Hood: That's right.
Ms Broten: What's your background expertise to run an operation like this?
Mr Hood: I communicate with a great number of people who are involved in different considerations and I have several degrees, but I'm not going to get into all that at the moment. I will say this to you clearly: The only thing that counts is the absolute, 100% understanding of what's going on in Ontario and in Canada, and that can be provided.
Ms Broten: But we don't know from whom it's going to be provided, we can't know the number of people involved and you won't share with us your background.
Mr Hood: Well, let me put it to you this way: There are a number of people who could be watching television right now that I have concerns about. I've come here for one reason, and that is to help Mike and others understand the dilemmas. But again, it's only the paper.
Ms Broten: Understood.
Is Global Warming Prevention Technologies Inc really a company that sells scrubbers for coal-fired plants?
Mr Hood: Global Warming, which I'm a part of, is very technically oriented. It is there for one reason; that is, to find solutions. We have the academic coalition for political sciences and urban development and others involved. We have come up with some very, very important solutions to serious dilemmas.
Ms Broten: Is it a public company or a privately held company?
Mr Hood: Privately held.
Ms Broten: And you're the president, Mr Poulos?
Mr Poulos: Yes.
Ms Broten: What's your background?
Mr Poulos: My background is in architecture and industrial design.
Ms Broten: Are you also a shareholder, Mr Hood?
Mr Hood: I am.
Ms Broten: So a closely held private company.
Mr Poulos: Yes. There are eight directors. Presently we are working with CNS consultants, who right now are looking at providing solutions at an RFP level with us to the federal government, which just released a threat --
Mr Hood: Yes, but you can't --
Ms Broten: Have you sold any of these technologies in North America?
Mr Poulos: On the waste technologies, we're into a position of intent with the region of Peel --
Ms Broten: You're cutting in and out on your microphone.
The Acting Chair: Mr Poulos, if you'd just step back. I think you're too close to the microphone.
Mr Poulos: OK. The region of Peel has been researching with us for three years the technology that we are now funding for the region of Peel, which is a $10-million waste recycling plant.
Ms Broten: But the coal technology, the scrubber technology --
Mr Poulos: That's in its feasibility stage.
The Acting Chair: MPP Zimmer?
Mr Zimmer: Just for the edification of the committee, in this unnumbered collection of documents, one of the documents, dated June 7, 2000: "Dear John:" -- is that you?
Mr Hood: What's that?
Mr Zimmer: I don't know. It says here, "Please be advised that the documents ... are to be treated as class `A' secret."
Mr Hood: If it's there, it's only for your interest. If it's supposed to be secret, it shouldn't be before this committee.
Mr Zimmer: All right, thank you. I have no further questions.
The Acting Chair: Any further questions? I want to thank you both for being here and presenting these very comprehensive documents that the committee can look at. If you want further information, I'm sure Mr Hood will be more than happy to sit down with members of the committee.
The committee stands adjourned until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning.
Mr Hood: Mike, could I say something in closing, just quickly?
The Acting Chair: Yes.
Mr Hood: You had a presentation before you prior to this, and that was the trucking industry. As you know, you've received a lot of communications in regard to border issues, especially the transportation of nuclear waste. I'm dealing with that. I might as well give it to you straight.
The Acting Chair: OK. So we can access that information from you also, then, if we wish.
Mr Hood: All right. The big problem there -- and I'll say this very quickly --
The Acting Chair: It's got to be confidential.
Mr Hood: -- the reason those trucks are being delayed at the border and the number of trucks that were turned back carrying low levels and high levels of radioactive materials is because of Tom Ridge's people. The border problems -- thousands of trucks are going there and they can't inspect them because there are tens of thousands of different items in garbage and they can't hand that bill in.
Mr Bradley knows all about it, and I was surprised that it wasn't being discussed here.
The Acting Chair: OK. We'll follow up on that. Thank you very much for the deputation.
Members of the committee, we'll resume tomorrow at 10 am.
The committee adjourned at 1402.
CONTENTS
Wednesday 25 August 2004
Emergency Management Statutes Review JP-243
Ontario Paramedic Association JP-243
Mr Robert Burgess
Canadian Red Cross, Ontario Zone JP-250
Mr Gordon Moore
Mr Steve Armstrong
Dairy Farmers of Ontario JP-255
Mr Gordon Coukell
Mr Robert Bishop
Ontario Trucking Association JP-259
Mr David Bradley
Mr Barrie Montague
Public Protection Action Committee/Global Warming Prevention Technologies Inc. JP-264
Mr Ian Hood
Mr Steve Poulos
STANDING COMMITTEE ON JUSTICE POLICY
Chair / Président
Mr David Orazietti (Sault Ste Marie L)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président
Mr Bob Delaney (Mississauga West / Mississauga-Ouest L)
Mr Michael A. Brown (Algoma-Manitoulin L)
Mr Jim Brownell (Stormont-Dundas-Charlottenburgh L)
Mr Bob Delaney (Mississauga West / Mississauga-Ouest L)
Mr Kevin Daniel Flynn (Oakville L)
Mr Tim Hudak (Erie-Lincoln PC)
Mr Frank Klees (Oak Ridges PC)
Mr Peter Kormos (Niagara Centre / Niagara-Centre ND)
Mr David Orazietti (Sault Ste Marie L)
Mr Mario G. Racco (Thornhill L)
Substitutions / Membres remplaçants
Mr Wayne Arthurs (Pickering-Ajax-Uxbridge L)
Ms Laurel C. Broten (Etobicoke-Lakeshore L)
Mr Mike Colle (Eglinton-Lawrence L)
Mrs Liz Sandals (Guelph-Wellington L)
Mr David Zimmer (Willowdale L)
Clerk pro tem / Greffier par intérim
Mr Douglas Arnott
Staff / Personnel
Mr Albert Nigro, legislative counsel
Mr Avrum Fenson, research officer
Research and Information Services