CANADA HAS NO FEDERAL EMERGENCY AGENCY

A front page story in today's Ottawa Citizen reports weaknesses in Canada's ability to deal with disasters and emergencies, according to a 2004 study by the Defence Science Advisory Board.

What the story does not report is that the federal Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness (OCIPEP) no longer exists as an autonomous unit within the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.

OCIPEP was created with some fanfare under Prime Minister Chrétien in February 2001 to replace Emergency Preparedness Canada as an autonomous civilian agency under National Defence.

It was shifted under Prime Minister Martin to the new Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness in December 2003.

OCIPEP was then quietly abolished by the Liberal government in April 2004 in a re-shuffling of the bureaucracy. It has been broken up and its components distributed within the regular bureaucracy of the Emergency Management and National Security Branch of the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.

This disbanding of its specialized agency (our equivalent of FEMA in the US) focused on emergences gives me little confidence that the federal government will be able to respond effectively to the next big disaster. It is amazing that no-one in the media, the opposition, or academia seems to have noticed the disappearance of this important organization.

Posted by markc at January 2, 2006 01:09 PM | TrackBack