Home Newsroom 2004 Speeches (archive) McLellan: 2004-05-28

Federation of Canadian Municipalities annual conference and municipal expo

Speaking notes for
The Honourable Anne McLellan

Edmonton, Alberta
May 28, 2004

As delivered

Thank you Ann [MacLean] for your introduction. Good day everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today at this important conference.

I would particularly like to thank Monsieur Yves Ducharme, the mayor of the city of Gatineau.

As Ann mentioned, I have had the opportunity to speak before the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) in previous manifestations, particularly when I was Minister of Justice. And while my responsibilities have changed since then, my appreciation for the Federation of Canadian Municipalities has not. The Federation is a strong national voice for municipal governments, at a time when that voice needs to be heard more than ever.

Obviously, I’m delighted that you have chosen my hometown of Edmonton as the site for your 67^th Annual Conference and Municipal Expo. As those of you who’ve been out and about in our community have been able to see, this is a vibrant, growing, exciting community.

There is so much happening these days in the City of Edmonton, it’s almost hard to keep up with it all. I see some councillors – Councillor Ron Hayter – from our City Council and there are probably others in the room. Ron knows firsthand about the growth in our community and about the pressures of extraordinary growth on a community like Edmonton.

You may have also discovered that, as a city, we’re celebrating our 100^th birthday this year, so it’s a special year for the city of Edmonton. I hope all of you get out and enjoy all the things that our community has to offer.

And I would apologize for the rain except for the fact that we need rain. I was out in Panoka, Alberta, last evening and met with some ranchers, cattlemen and farmers. And what they were doing was praying for rain. So I’m praying that this rain is falling not only on Edmonton, but in Panoka and a whole lot of other places in Alberta that desperately need rain if we’re going to avoid another season of drought for our agricultural community.

Now this afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to talk about some of the things the Government of Canada is doing to support municipalities. As you know better than anyone, Canada’s towns and cities are key to our social goals and our economic competitiveness. Our government acknowledged this in our last Speech from the Throne. We also know that you face new and difficult challenges in delivering your core services and managing growth. That’s why Prime Minister Martin has proposed a New Deal for municipalities.

This afternoon, I want to focus on issues that are directly related to my portfolio, specifically the issues of emergency preparedness and response, crime prevention, policing and organized crime.

The tragic events of September 11, 2001, brought national safety and security to the forefront of public policy issues. Since that time, our government has invested more than $8 billion in additional measures to enhance security for Canadians while ensuring that our borders remain open and efficient to legitimate commerce and travellers.

I know that this free flow of goods and people is of vital importance to municipalities, particularly our border communities. Our efforts to secure the public health and safety of Canadians has been strengthened and accelerated under the leadership of Prime Minister Martin.

Immediately after being sworn in, the Prime Minister announced the creation of a new portfolio of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. This is my new department and where the Prime Minister has tried to pull together key aspects dealing at the federal level with our national safety and security, and bring a sharper focus to bear so that we cannot only do a better job within the federal government, but also a better job working with our partners, the provinces and municipalities and in some cases, obviously, the private sector.

We’ve brought together in this new department the core functions of security and intelligence, policing and enforcement, corrections and crime prevention, border services and border integrity, immigration enforcement and emergency management. All those things are now under one cabinet minister, in one department. These changes have enabled us to close security gaps, communicate more effectively and operate more strategically to protect Canadians.

On April 27, we took another important step forward with the release of Canada’s first-ever integrated National Security Policy. The policy addresses a wide range of threats – intentional and unintentional, natural and human made – everything from terrorist attacks to events like the SARS outbreak in Toronto and the incident of mad cow disease here, in our own province of Alberta.

It identifies a number of strategic initiatives that need to be undertaken, and our Government has committed more than $690 million in Budget 2004 to implement many of the identified and needed measures.

An underlying principle of Canada’s National Security Policy is that security is not solely a federal responsibility. In fact, as you all know, it starts much closer to home. As a general rule, the responsibility for responding to emergencies lies first with individuals and then with municipalities and first responders like police, fire departments and hospitals. If help were needed, the municipality would typically request it from the provincial or territorial government, which, in turn, may seek assistance from the Government of Canada if the emergency escalates beyond its capacity to respond.

In other words, municipalities are often the first line of defence in emergency preparedness and response in Canada. They, therefore, have a fundamental role to play in our efforts to build a fully integrated and effective security system.

I understand that the FCM intends to survey its members to learn more about their emergency management concerns and costs. This is an important initiative and let me underscore, not only for you, but also for people in my department and in the Government of Canada generally, because what you will do through this survey is be able to provide all of us with a better idea of the emergency response capacity of Canadian municipalities.

While municipalities tend to be the first called into action when a local emergency occurs, we have found important ways to help, for example, the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Joint Emergency Preparedness Program. Now, a lot of words there, but this program, some of you will know as JEPP.

This program funds local initiatives to increase the capacity of first responders throughout Canada. Many of you in this room have probably received funds from this program. It provides $5 million in federal funds annually with matching contributions from the provinces, territories and municipalities, as appropriate, to purchase emergency response equipment, develop emergency plans and conduct training exercises.

Earlier this year, at the request of the local MP, I had the opportunity to visit Cornwall where over $90,000 has been committed to that city for CBRN Hazmat equipment and training. We committed those funds in 2002-2003, and I was able to see firsthand the use of those funds and what they have been able to procure in the City of Cornwall to ensure a higher level of emergency preparedness.

In general, CBRN Hazmat equipment includes personal protective equipment, such as suits for first responders, detection equipment, communications and decontamination equipment. These first responders are absolutely critical to our well-being.

And let me digress for just a minute here. Some of you, if you were watching the news yesterday, may have noted an incident here in the City of Edmonton involving my constituency office, involving our provincial Legislature and at least one other building in our city.

While I can’t go into the details of this event, it gave me a firsthand example and evidence of how important frontline responders are. When I first got word that an envelope had been received at my office that contained white powder, I alarmed and my staff in the constituency office did the right thing. Who do you call? They called fire. Right? They called the fire department, first thing. So immediately everything – and what impressed me so much, and Ron, you can take this back to everybody in the city – everything worked exactly the way it should have worked.

You had your fire department there, you had your police there, you had your rescue, you had your decontamination unit there and they cordoned off the area. In fact, it probably was almost a textbook example of how frontline response should operate.

Yesterday was tremendous. It was a pressure on our frontline responders because they had to respond to a number of incidents and last night the Legislature was locked down until 10 pm because some 28 packets of possible substance had been delivered to the Legislature.

I’m fully aware of the enormous pressures that are placed upon frontline responders in our local communities, but, I must say, yesterday was an example of the utility of the training that all our frontline responders go through, how important that training is and how important it is that they are equipped appropriately to do the often very dangerous jobs that they’re called upon to undertake on our behalf.

Yes, you can applaud all our frontline responders.

To give you another example of the kinds of things that JEPP funds, it also helped kick-start the development of Alberta’s emergency warning system. The unique feature of the system is that it gives local government officials to the ability to broadcast an emergency warning quickly and directly to radio, cable and television stations. It will ensure that Albertans have the information they need to protect themselves and their families in an emergency situation.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, we’re also in the process of developing a new Critical Infrastructure Protection Strategy for Canada in consultation with the provinces, territories and the private sector. We’re going to release a position paper this summer in which we will outline what may be proposed elements of a strategy.

Clearly we know that the protection of critical infrastructure is key. The terrorist attack in Madrid, for example. Clearly, light transit systems are part of our critical infrastructure. But it may also be gas lines, it may be power lines. Clearly we need to be all working together at all levels of government to identify our critical infrastructure and make sure we have the appropriate strategies in place to protect that infrastructure.

In relation to the development of this national strategy around critical infrastructure, sectoral working groups will be meeting in advance of this fall to work on a strategy around protection. And again, it’s going to be absolutely key that local governments participate in the work that takes place because without local government input, I don't think the federal and provincial governments can get this right.

We’re also going to be establishing a cyber-security task force – again I think one in which we would want to see local government participation.

Let me just say a few words about the DFAA, which I think all of you in this room are probably aware of. In the event of a large-scale disaster or emergency, the Government of Canada provides financial assistance to provincial and territorial governments through the Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements. This initiative helps cover the basic costs of disaster response and recovery efforts, when those costs exceed what a province or territory could reasonably be expected to bear on its own.

Since the inception of the program in the 1970s the Government of Canada has paid out over $1.5 billion in post-disaster assistance to provinces and territories. I don't need to give you the many examples of both the small and large amounts of money that we provide under that program to provinces and then, obviously, in many cases those funds make their way down to local governments.

Clearly, whether it’s Hurricane Juan, the forest fires in the interior of British Columbia, ice storms, floods, the DFAA, provinces usually call upon us and the DFAA to assist them in their exceptional and extraordinary disaster and recovery costs.

Now the need for consistency of application and the need for an improvement of federal, provincial, territorial cooperation is, I think, pretty clear in relation to the DFAA. There are serious questions, as you’re probably aware, ladies and gentlemen, around what the DFAA applies to. I know from my brief experience as Minister of Public Safety that part of my discussion is with my provincial colleagues around what is covered and the requests, the invoices they send to us in terms of what is covered and what isn’t.

Sometimes this ends up being an unnecessary fight in the pages of the papers or elsewhere because we all have the same goal, which is obviously to try and help people in need. Therefore, I am fully committed to undertaking a review of the DFAA. I think some years ago, when my former colleague, Art Eggleton, was Minister of National Defence – and of course this whole area was under DND up until December 12^th – he began a review with the provinces. But unfortunately that did not move forward in a very smooth or quick fashion for anyone.

What we have to do is look at the DFAA and determine what we want it to include, for example, last spring and summer with the province of Ontario around SARS. Are public health emergencies included in the DFAA? If not, should we create at the federal level a separate public health emergencies disaster or recovery fund? If so, what should it apply to? These are serious questions.

The premiers identified them last August at their First Ministers meeting and they spoke directly about a review of the DFAA and whether public health emergencies were included and if not, whether we should have a separate fund. I am open to looking at all those questions and those discussions have begun at the officials’ level and with ministers responsible for emergency preparedness, including the DFAA. We’re going to have, I think, one of our first-ever ministerial meetings – provincial, federal, territorial – this fall, and I think that speaks to the fact that we all know how important it is that we work together in this area so that we are able, in fact, to have a more seamless response.

I just want to let everyone here know that I’m very open to the review of the DFAA and there are some very serious questions that we’re going to have to address in terms of what it should be, what it should apply to and whether it is actually meeting the needs of emergency preparedness in the world in which we live today. Where one could be meeting the outcome of a terrorist attack or a public health emergency or a natural disaster that we’re all familiar with, such as floods or hurricanes.

Now, just before moving on, I would like to mention briefly a report that some of you I know participated in on emergency preparedness, which was completed by the Standing Committee of National Security and Defence in the Senate and was chaired by the Honourable Colin Kenney. I just want to say that I think this report did some remarkable work and Senator Kenney identified in this report a number of omissions and gaps in the area of emergency preparedness. We have already moved to fill some of those gaps, but I wouldn’t pretend that we’re there yet.

Some of you in this room, or your municipalities, participated in a survey that he did that led us to believe that we just have to work a lot more closely together and we have to get a lot more information flowing both up and down in terms of levels of government so that we know our state of preparedness. I was struck, as a former Minister of Health, that Colin’s report indicated that most municipal officials did not know where those strategic stashes of supplies were in their communities.

For example, if a SARS episode broke out or if we had a Madrid situation where people were badly injured – and we do, as a government and a department of Health, have these strategic stashes of supplies around the country. I’d be interested in your views, but it seems to me that if the people on the frontlines don't know where they are, I’m not exactly sure how much use that is to everybody.

Those are seemingly simple things that I think we need to work on together to make sure that the information flow and the knowledge is there so we can all respond in the way that we would want.

Now let me just turn my focus from emergency preparedness and frontline response, which is so important for local communities, to another area which is important to me and you, and that is crime prevention. Crime prevention is clearly a very big issue in most Canadian communities. It’s also a big part of what my new department does and when I was in the Department of Justice, as Minister of Justice, I was able to begin this program. I must say I am a very strong believer that, as communities, we need to do more to prevent crime in the first place, and therefore I’m pleased to have this program back in my new department.

Our government believes that community safety is best addressed by the people who live, work and play in the community. Mayors and city councillors, in particular, are strategically positioned to initiate and coordinate local action. And again, my department is there to be an active partner. Through the National Crime Prevention Strategy, we work with other levels of government, community groups and other key partners across Canada to develop initiatives that create and sustain safer communities.

Since it was established in 1998, the National Crime Prevention Strategy has supported more than 4,000 projects in over 800 communities. And just let me give you one example many of you would be aware of – Vancouver’s downtown east-side revitalization program. That was a five-year project to address the many issues that contribute to crime and victimization in that part of the city of Vancouver. The project is just finishing and will provide us with knowledge not only to help Vancouver, but also to help other communities across the country.

Partnerships have also been formed with national organizations to help build community capacity. An excellent example was a project with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to develop a municipal drug prevention strategy for urban and rural municipalities across Canada. This project was successful in identifying issues of concern. Action plans were identified and developed in six pilot sites across Canada.

Community police services obviously have a critical frontline role to play in building safe and secure communities. Ensuring that police officers across the country have the tools they need to do their jobs and to work effectively with other partners and the criminal justice system remains a key priority for my department.

Earlier this month, during police week, I announced five initiatives that will assist police forces across Canada in promoting public safety and I just briefly want to deal with these because some of them have been on your agenda for some time.

First, the Sex Offender Information Registration Act came into force in April providing for the creation of a national sex offender registry that will allow police forces and other law enforcement agencies to track convicted sex offenders. The registry should be fully operational this fall.

Second, our government introduced a National Strategy to protect children from sexual exploitation on the Internet. Over the next five years, our government will commit more than $42 million to expand the RCMP’s National Coordination Centre and provide law enforcement with better tools and resources to investigate Internet-based child exploitation.

This is a growing problem, both here in our country, but around the world. Organized crime, of which I will speak in just a minute or two, is making big money out of Internet sexual exploitation of children. At this point, organized crime in this country has not become as active in the area of sexual exploitation of children on the Internet as they have in Western Europe, in Japan and the United Kingdom.

When I meet with colleagues from other G8 countries, they identify this area as, tragically, a key growth area for organized crime in their countries and that is why we want to make sure that we’re getting on top of this and providing law enforcement agencies with the support that they need from the national level to try and deal with this.

One of the other things we’re doing is taking a pilot project from Manitoba, which we helped fund, called cyber-tip and we’re going to turn it into a national program where, in fact, it’s a tip line on the sexual exploitation of children, be it through the Internet or other means. Other countries have these national tip lines. The pilot project in Manitoba proved quite successful and, therefore, we’re going to fund its expansion across the country.

Third, the Government of Canada has reached an agreement-in-principle on new cost sharing arrangements with the provinces and territories on DNA analysis. These new arrangements will encourage more samples to be entered into the national DNA databank, increasing its effectiveness as a tool for police to promote public safety.

Fourth, we released a report entitled Working Together to Combat Organized Crime. This report highlights what the federal, provincial and territorial governments, working with law enforcement agencies across Canada, have accomplished in the fight against organized crime in all its forms.

Finally, last week I announced improvements to the Offender Management System administered by Correctional Services of Canada. These changes will enhance the safety of Canadians by strengthening information sharing among criminal justice partners such as police forces, the Canadian Police Information Centre, or CPIC, provincial and territorial corrections and parole boards.

I know you are concerned about the release of offenders into your communities and information around offenders on parole and it continues to be one of my preoccupations in terms of making sure we are able to work with local communities and local law enforcement to get you the information you need and they need to protect the people who live in our communities.

Let me just say a few words about organized crime. Obviously it is a major problem in all communities of all sizes and all types across our country. Many of our social problems – drug related burglaries, smuggled cigarettes, telemarketing scams, juvenile prostitution or other illegally financed activities – are all linked to organized crime.

Developing effective, collaborative solutions to combat organized crime is a matter of great importance to the federal government, our provincial and territorial partners and the law enforcement community generally.

Now I just want to say a few words now about one particular part of this, which is illegal grow operations, which I know are becoming a bigger and bigger problem for municipal leaders. But just before I do that, I want to underscore the fact that when I was Minister of Justice, we enhanced our Criminal Code provisions around organized crime. But, I wish I could stand up here and tell you that organized crime is less today than it was ten years ago or five years ago. But in fact, it isn’t.

Organized crime is an incredibly profitable business and they reinvest a lot of their illegally gained profits in means and mechanisms and ways of avoiding detection. Therefore it’s an ongoing struggle every day to try and keep one step ahead of those who are in the business of organized crime.

Clearly we always need to review our criminal laws, we need to make sure our law enforcement agencies have their frontline resources. A lot of it is technology driven these days and it is all global, more or less.

In that respect, we know that money raised in this country through organized crime is funding terrorist activities in places like Afghanistan and there are many reasons why you want to rip the guts out of organized crime. For the safety of the people who live in our communities, absolutely, but we also have to do it because it helps fund the kinds of terrorist activities that we see in places like Madrid and New York and other parts of the world. This is a global challenge, which speaks to the fact our law enforcement agencies not only have to be connected across our country, but they have to be connected globally.

You certainly have my commitment that I will continue to work with everyone who has an interest in this because we simply cannot continue to see the growth of organized crime. We need to use our resources in more effective ways to deal with this scourge.

Let me just say a few words now about illegal grow ops. In May of last year, we announced the renewal of Canada’s National Drug Strategy and we did allocate additional resources to establish the marijuana grow operations enforcement team and teams across the country and those teams are coordinated by a National Coordinator out of Ottawa.

They are integrated teams led by the RCMP that work very closely with local law enforcement and local government officials to try and deal with the scourge of illegal grow ops. I was in Surrey last weekend. I had a crime prevention roundtable there and one of the things that the police and others came to talk to me about, citizens came to talk to me about, was the growth of illegal grow ops in their community.

We see it here in Edmonton. We see it Barrie, Ontario. We see it in parts of Quebec and in fact, illegal grow ops are becoming a major challenge. They are a huge profit centre for organized crime. They move this stuff across our borders into the U.S. and what they smuggle back are guns, people in some cases, and hard drugs, like cocaine and U.S. dollars.

For example, when I was in Cornwall and I watched the IBET, the Integrated Border Enforcement Team, at work, that week, they had just picked someone up who’d taken marijuana across the border at the Cornwall area and, in fact, they caught the guys coming back with $250,000 US.

In relation to illegal grow ops, again, it’s about working together, working in a seamless fashion at all levels and making sure that our law enforcement officials have the means they need to do their job.

Now, I think all of this was just a signal that it’s time for me to stop talking and I would be happy to entertain any questions that you might have.

Let me conclude by saying that I’m absolutely thrilled that the Prime Minister created this new department, thereby permitting us as the Government of Canada to put a sharper focus on Canadian safety, security and our ability to prepare for emergencies.

But we can only do this if we work with local governments and provinces – it is absolutely key. But we must also with local governments across this country because that’s where emergencies arise, that’s where illegal grow ops are found. And we need to work together I think and a lot of good work has been down.

But there’s more. We need to take it all to the next level and whether it’s what we’ve learned about organized crime or what we’ve learned about terrorism or what we’ve learned in terms of what we need to do to prepare for natural disasters, I think we’ve got to take this to the next level if we are able to discharge our obligations to Canadians as it relates to their basic safety and security.

I will conclude by saying that at the end of the day, the most important fundamental obligation of any level of government is to provide for the safety and security of its people because if you have people who live in fear, nothing else is possible.

Thank you very much.