Feds, provinces shake hands on emergency preparedness plan

Federal and provincial representatives meeting in Ottawa have agreed to a plan to strengthen Canada’s emergency preparedness plans. In a meeting chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan and Ontario Minister of Community Safety Monte Kwinter, provincial and territorial ministers drew up an eight-point plan and established a permanent forum for annual meetings on emergency management.
Among the strategies in the plan are:
– harmonizing the federal emergency response framework with that of provinces and territories by this fall;
– strengthening and finding options to the current “Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements (DFAA)” to be completed for review by this summer;
– inventorying all disaster assistance program and linking provincial programs with the federal inventory;
– developing options for a “National Disaster Mitigation Strategy” to be submitted for review by this summer;
– updating training strategies;
– developing a calendar of emergency response exercises to be reviewed by this summer;
– expediting implementation of Industry Canada’s “National Public Alerting Strategy”; and
– developing a working plan for a national critical infrastructure protection plan by this summer.