Frustrated fire chief slams federal response
Cornforth angered by funding cuts to emergency preparedness
OTTAWA — Aside from the great support offered by Canadian Forces personnel, the federal government has done nothing but get in the way during the Alberta floods, the president of the Alberta Fire Chiefs Association said Friday.
In a candid interview with Postmedia News as he drove home to Lethbridge after a week in High River, where the worst of the flooding has occurred, Chief Brian Cornforth didn’t mince words as he slammed Public Safety Minister Vic Toews and his government’s response to the disaster, as well as its funding cuts to emergency preparedness.
“The federal government, they can just stay in Ottawa. They got in the way,” he said, singling out Toews, who visited High River on Wednesday.
“Coming into the site, it’s pretty hard to deal with those guys because they require a lot of resources to provide them security. Unless they’re directly in charge of the military and have a functional role, it’s really just posing.”
Cornforth said the federal government talks a good game on public safety but hasn’t been much of a partner. He said he’s sickened by near daily reports of misspending at the “highest levels of government” when funding is being cut for things like emergency preparedness and urban search and rescue.
Budget 2012 effectively slashed federal funding for the Joint Emergency Preparedness Program which has provided nearly $184 million to the provinces and territories for projects related to emergency preparedness, urban search and rescue and critical infrastructure protection since 1980.
According to a memo obtained by Postmedia News through access to information legislation, the government provided an initial $20 million over six years in 2001 for four Heavy Urban Search and Rescue task forces located in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Manitoba. Comprised of firefighters, paramedics, police, parks staff and engineers, the units are capable of locating people who may be trapped in collapsed structures, as well as removing debris using heavy construction equipment. The task forces received $3 million a year following the initial instalment, but that ceased as of March 31, 2013.
The Calgary team has been heavily involved in the flood relief efforts and 30 members of the Vancouver team were called in to give them a break. Cornforth said this event should raise awareness about the need to give the program sufficient resources in the future.
John McKearney, the Vancouver fire chief who is also responsible for the city’s heavy urban search and rescue task force, said this is “not the time to deconstruct the program.” It took five years to get it fully equipped and “firing on all cylinders” and given the increase in “severe weather patterns,” he expects it will be needed more, not less.
While he admits the old JEPP program had its problems, cutting off urban search and rescue, a job he compares to that of the U.S. National Guard, isn’t the answer. He and his counterparts have made a pitch to the federal government to provide an additional $1.6 million over three years — in addition to the funds already promised by the various provinces and municipalities — to keep the teams going at full strength while they look for alternative sources of funding.
“If we don’t see that, certainly from Canadian Task Force 1’s perspective, I don’t have the budget to keep this going at the level that it has been and it will recede,” he said Friday, adding the government has thus far been “mute” on the proposal. “We will move away from a national approach to a more regional, provincial, inside the borders mindset and that’s a shame.”