Chaos to System and Systems to Chaos

I just finished reading an article in the Toronto Sun entitled "A Former Military Leader Breaks Down What Ontario Must Do Now." I will touch on this article further down.

In 2008, the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence Canada released a 235-page report entitled Emergency Preparedness in Canada: How the fine arts of bafflegab and procrastination hobble the people who will be trying to save you when things get really bad..."

To attempt to summarize this piece of art is futile. As an Emergency Management professional this work of literate art paired with national survey data has become somewhat of a failsafe that I can turn to when I find frustration having heard statements like "unprecedented" and "we just could not have anticipated this" as we continue to see the same mistakes made repetitiously at National, Provincial, and Local levels.

This 2008 report launches forward with a preamble that reads

"National Emergencies: Alarmist Committee Attempts to Terrify Canadians! Again!"

and carries on with such gems as

"So we on the Senate Committee for National Security and Defence would like to go on record: the sky is not falling. Actually, we would like to go on record twice: The sky is not falling but somewhere soon in Canada it will seem like it is, and Canadian governments are not moving quickly enough to minimize the damage."

The role of the Canadian Armed Forces in emergency management is not well understood, it wasn't in 2008 and it still is not today. Heck, my own profile photo now represents deployed CAF members coming to aid my own community throughout our 2021 Atmospheric River response which resulted in all 8 Electoral areas impacted with more than 30 geographic areas of impact, 66 known/recorded/reported incident areas, and more than a couple thousand properties that faced some type of damage. We valued the allied relationship with the deployed CAF members. The CAF is not responsible for managing our local emergencies, however, once requested by the Province in a multi-jurisdictional emergency that spans many jurisdictional boundaries *might* be deployed for hard and fast labour surge or for the use of combat engineering for things beyond normal skill/availability/capacity within the region or province.

The Bafflgab Report table of contents:

• Problem 1: Lack of Emergency Management.............................................. 3
• Problem 2: Use of the Canadian Forces?for Domestic Emergencies ... 8
• Problem 3: Hidden Emergency Caches ......................................................... 22
• Problem 4: Lack of Funding for Equipment & Training .......................... 33
• Problem 5: Poor Collaboration Among Governments ............................ 42
• Problem 6(a): Lessons Learned Not Remembered .................................... 51
• Problem 6(b): Lack of Leadership on Best Practices................................. 57
• Problem 7: Emergency Public Communications ........................................ 70
• Problem 8: Lack of First Responder Interoperability ................................ 79
• Problem 9: First Responders Ignored.............................................................. 88
• Problem 10: Poor Federal Leadership on Critical Infrastructure Protection ............................................................................... 98
• Problem 11: Emergency Ad Hockery ............................................................ 112
• Problem 12(a): Emergency Preparedness?and Canada’s Police ........... 127
• Problem 12(b): Policing During Emergencies .............................................. 129
• Problem 12(c): The State of the Mounties Today......................................... 135
• Conclusion?..................................................................................................................?140
• Listening to the People on the Front Lines ..................................................... 143

Sometimes, I pull this report and review the table of contents as a niggling reminder that the frustrations faced in EM today are not new. They are not unrecorded. The pathways have been paved in the EM realm by pioneers come-and-gone. I ponder what influence I and EM colleagues, allies, and associations might have to move beyond this haberdashery of pieces we call "emergency management."

Fast forward a few years beyond the creation of the Bafflegab Report: The CAF received funding to increase domestic emergency management training, exercises, and support capabilities resulting in the creation of the standing Operation LENTUS (initiated in 2013). At no point is the CAF in charge of local responses. Legislation nationally delegates management of emergencies to Provinces and in Canada this is then downloaded again to Local Governments and in some Provinces also to First Nations. We and our citizens were fortunate to be served by OpLentus and yet each day there was much back-and-forth between our EOC, the Provincial Regional EOC and the CAF regarding what is in scope/out of scope of their service. All while the public cry out for enabling the CAF to lead, control, and manage emergencies despite that these works are ongoing at the legislated levels and to the best of capacity.

Nationwide we have EM associations. There is a broad mix of localized Provincial Associations and also a number of International Association of Emergency Managers chapters. There are national standards and international standards for emergency management, business continuity, and also for disaster recovery. Within the "sector" of emergency management practitioners engage with one another and do our collective best to advocate for our sector while working toward standardization, credentialing, industry standards of conduct, baseline academic opportunities, and also for things such as standardized access of ICS Canada materials and training opportunities. Many of us in local government EM find ourselves stuck between higher demands for greater output and delivery while still not being provided with the budgets required to perform the work expected of us or even to meet statutory compliance or authority to incorporate all functional business units of our organization into the EM framework.

When emergencies arise we hear and feel the negative feedback from our public because we did not do enough, then we face the dual-edge sword of asking for budget increases to meet the demand of the public we serve, requests which are often denied.

Canada lacks a national regulatory authority to help establish common standards and baseline minimums. Without this, each Province builds their EM realm uniquely. Unique EM builds limit the effectiveness and capability of successful mutual aid and integration of allied stakeholders.

Fast forward to the pandemic "response" which is very much a 2-year adventure in reaction and the article released January 5th by the Toronto Sun FUREY: A former military leader breaks down what Ontario must do now. Have a read and circle back. A call for CAF to be brought in to assist with the Provinces C-19 response has been requested... before the Province considers its own EMO and EM-type resources. Kudos to Redman for speaking up and speaking out. It is almost like a fear exists that not-health could be in control of a health emergency, rather than that the framework of EM and the systems in EM could be utilized to support a health emergency (as done in past national-risk level pandemic responses successfully with after-action reviews that demonstrate how to improve upon this model). So herein is a world of professional emergency managers trying to establish our roles for the sake of safe public while being sidelined in public safety processes to the point where not even the systems, tools, and decision matrices designed for the purpose of managing public safety with logic, multi-sectoral considerations, and balance for best outcomes are being utilized been by the health sector.

Now, to be clear, I don't want to be in charge of a pandemic response nor am I wanting to debate the effectiveness of each province's response. I feel it is important to take moments like these and utilize them for reflection upon that lack of newness with these types of sentiments and remind ourselves that there are major systemic issues holding the success of emergency management back and that more systemic issues involve a lack of awareness outside of EM on what EM is and does.

Without a national regulatory agency and some type of national baseline standards and training how would we ever expect elected officials to know what Emergency Management is and does and how best to utilize it to bring systems to chaos and chaos to systems? Why are we still spinning the same hamster wheel? When can we move forward?

My final comment pasted from within the Bafflegab Report says this: there remains a perception that politicians and bureaucrats at the senior levels aren’t listening to first responders about what the municipalities feel they need most to cope with emergencies. There are also complaints that the systems in place to provide assistance to the municipalities are cumbersome and under-funded. While senior levels of government are prepared to tell municipalities that they must put emergency preparedness programs in place, they do not seem prepared to provide the funds needed to keep preparedness programs operational or to make adjustments to these programs if situations change or flaws are perceived.

If you work in Emergency Management I strongly encourage that you read volume 1 of the Bafflegab Report and remember that this path was paved before most of us started in EM and it is up to us now to think strategically, ally our associations, and pursue a future whereby we influence top-level & elected leadership to have a mandatory and minimum comprehension of their responsibilities in supporting public safety in and through supporting emergency management. Kudos to Alberta for adding a regulatory requirement for elected officials in January 2020 for a web-delivered provincially hosted training course that must be completed within 90 days of appointment as an elected official. If our elected representatives know what EM is and does and how to utilize it increases resiliency and safety they are far more likely to empower funding that supports preparedness, public education, and understands the importance of developing resilient communities with fewer variance permits.