Does Canada need a national emergency response agency?
CBC
The federal minister responsible for emergency preparedness hasn't ruled out the possibility of creating a national emergency response agency, which at least one expert says Canada desperately needs.
Harjit Sajjan, the minister of emergency preparedness, was asked Thursday if Canada needs to form a federal emergency response organization, similar to the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Sajjan didn't rule it out, but said Ottawa is already committed to providing emergency assistance to provinces when called upon.
"We need to make sure the right resources are put into the right place," he said, adding that the federal government is training more firefighters through departments such as Natural Resources Canada.
Sajjan was speaking in Edmonton in the wake of the wildfire that destroyed a third of the town of Jasper, Alta.
"Given the intensity of the fire, every request [for assistance] was approved," the minister said.
Currently, Ottawa can't provide natural disaster assistance without a provincial government asking for it first.
Ali Asgary, a professor of disaster and emergency management at York University in Toronto, says it's a "no brainer" that Canada should have some type of overarching disaster agency.
"The existing system that we have in place — mostly relying on local emergency response or provincial or territorial emergency response — is neither sufficient nor able to respond effectively and on time," he told CBC News.
Asgary said two of the biggest shortfalls of Canada's current system is a lack of both risk assessments and of planning before disasters strike. Both could be done by a centralized agency, he said.
"Once you have a good risk assessment in place for the whole of Canada, then you can have mitigation measures adapted… and provide guidelines for the implementation of those," he said.
Last year, as Canada was dealing with its worst wildfire season on record, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggested his government was looking into creating some kind of national disaster response agency.
"We need to … make sure we're doing everything we can to predict, protect, and act ahead of more of these events coming," he said at the time.
"So we continue to discuss and look at new mechanisms and new ways of doing that."
