As more military troops head to B.C., experts call for civilian disaster response solution

Military and security experts say civilian disaster response teams must be part of provincial government plans as climate disasters intensify.

As the Canadian Armed Forces sends additional troops to respond to floods in British Columbia, military and disaster management experts say now is the time to invest in civilian response teams.

This week’s catastrophic rainfall event left a handful of towns and cities under water, displaced thousands of people, killed at least one, and done millions of dollars in damage to critical infrastructure.

According to federal statistics, the number of calls for military response to natural disasters has nearly doubled in the last decade. Five of 23 calls for help in the last four years have come from B.C.

“With the increase in natural disasters that we’re seeing due to climate change, and in terms of scale, scope and frequency, we need to start saying, ‘Is there another alternative? Is there a better way?'” said Josh Bowen, an instructor at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology’s Faculty of Disaster and Emergency Management.

Bowen, a veteran and former deputy director of the CAF’s disaster and emergency response plans in Edmonton, said the military is a “force of last resort” in a disaster and has a finite budget.

It’s the only force in Canada with the expertise to respond immediately and effectively to a natural disaster, he added, but that may not cut it as the effects of climate change intensify.

“What I would argue is that we need to look at what our neighbours, what our NATO allies, what our G20 allies are doing to be able to have a civilian response capability,” Bowen said.

Countries like Germany and Australia have formalized large pools of civilian volunteers to respond to disasters — a much less expensive option than deploying the military.