Home Newsroom 2003 Speeches (archive) McLellan: 2003-12-18

Emergency Management Alberta Operations Centre

Speaking notes for
The Honourable Anne McLellan

Edmonton, Alberta
December 18, 2003

Thank you very much everyone. Good afternoon, and thank you Guy and Ty.

It’s always a pleasure to be anywhere with the two of you and let me say that this is my first official function since becoming Minister Responsible for Public Safety, Security and Emergency Preparedness. And I don’t think that there’s anywhere more fitting that I could be on my first public function than here with all of you with Alberta once again leading the way in this important area. We have all come to realize how important emergency preparedness, emergency management is. And I just want to thank both of you for inviting me to be with you today.

And ladies and gentlemen, as I say, the Prime Minister of Canada, Prime Minister Martin made the decision that he wanted to reorganize how the federal government went about assuring Canadians safety and security and that’s why he created a new department called public safety and emergency preparedness. And as Guy has outlined for you, in fact I cover a wide range, I have within this new department, a wide range of agencies and institutions. I have everything as Guy has said from CSIS and the RCMP to that which Ty and many of you in this room know as OCIPEP which was part of the Department of National Defence. It’s coming out of DND and it is going to become part of this new department.

We’re creating a new border agency. It was created officially last Friday afternoon and within the context of that border agency, I get all the customs officials who work at the border and elsewhere, I get some Canadian food inspection agents and I get some immigration enforcement agents. This new agency is going to be very important to ensure the timely movement of goods and people across our borders and nowhere is that more important than obviously here in our own province of Alberta. I also interestingly on the safety side, get the correction system, I get the National Parole Board, so a host of agencies and entities that deal with Canadian safety and security in one form or another.

Let me on behalf of the Government of Canada and Prime Minister Martin just congratulate everybody for what you are doing here, and in fact you are leaders and my officials have come and already I think have a number of visits talking to all of you and they are just so impressed. I had a, my first briefing with them on Wednesday afternoon and they were telling me about how impressed they are with what you have done here. And as I say, one of a kind in the country.

We at the federal level want to replicate what you have done here, bringing everyone together to ensure the safety and security of Albertans and in fact that’s one of the goals of this new department to make sure we’re functioning in a more integrated way, sharing information and sharing information obviously not only within the Government of Canada and all it’s agencies and departments but with other levels of government, the provinces and municipalities and cities.

And let me say that again as in so many other areas, that level of cooperation is no where better in the country than it is between the Government of Canada and the officials who work in this area and the Government of Alberta and the officials who work in this area and that’s a tribute to everybody who is committed to ensuring the safety and security of Albertans and all Canadians, many of you who are in this room.

So let me just say, for me it’s a very exciting time. It’s also a challenging time in terms of creating this new department with all it’s component parts. So I look forward to learning from you Guy, Ty and everyone in this room in terms of taking it to that next level as you have here in Alberta around emergency management and I think Guy and Ty have both eluded to this, it obviously is unfortunate, sad that we live in a world where we need to ensure a higher degree of emergency preparedness and management than ever before.

But that is the world in which we live and Canadians whether they live in Alberta, Newfoundland, wherever, Canadians expect their governments and here I say governments because there is no more paramount and fundamental obligation of government than to be able to provide for one citizen’s or resident’s safety and security. Because if people live in fear, if people live behind closed doors, then nothing else is possible. And therefore it is so important what is happening here today, the opening of this new facility and I think the creation of this new department at the federal level is so important. We’re all focused on the same objective which is delivering on the fundamental responsibility of any government, anywhere, the assurance of one’s citizens safety and security.

So I just want to thank you both again for inviting me here today and I also want to thank everyone because I know, because I wasn’t arriving a little later today, that you changed the time of this event and I really appreciate that and I hope a lot of you weren’t inconvenienced. And let me just say as well, I think we’re going to get an example of this smart board, right, and in fact one of the great things is that this is Alberta technology, right Ty, a company in Calgary.

So in fact there are so many good things that we are celebrating here today and one sees how Alberta in so many different ways is leading the path for all of us. So I look forward to our tour. Thanks all of you. I know you have all worked very hard to make this day possible and Albertans should be very proud as I know the Auditor General is.

Thank you.

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