Feds in ‘backup role’ for tornado response
OTTAWA • Canada’s Public Safety Minister, Ralph Goodale, says the damage left by the three tornadoes that hit the Ottawa-Gatineau region on Friday is “stunning and heartrending,” and that local authorities are heading up the recovery effort.
“The leadership is with the provincial and municipal officials,” Goodale said on Tuesday while touring the damage area, along with Kanata-Carleton MP Karen McCrimmon. “The government of Canada is in a backup role to respond to requests and we have been doing that.”
The scale of the destruction is still being assessed, but the tornadoes badly damaged more than 100 buildings in the region and mangled the hydro infrastructure. Officials have said it was a miracle nobody was killed, though seven were sent to hospital.
Goodale said the federal government has received no formal requests for assistance from provincial or municipal officials, and has had one informal request to provide mapping and surveillance information.
Otherwise, RCMP have assisted with backup policing, and Environment Canada meteorologists have provided forecast data and analysis of the tornadoes.
In other matters, such as supplying emergency shelters or helping with transportation, the federal government hasn’t had to step in. “The municipal resources that have been very expertly deployed by the City of Ottawa seem to have all of those logistical matters very much under control,” Goodale said.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in New York City for the United Nations General Assembly, and his office said he has no current plan to visit the site. Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna, the only Ottawa-area MP in cabinet, is also in New York, but her office said she was in Ottawa over the weekend and helped distributed emergency supplies. Gov. Gen. Julie Payette visited the damage area on Monday.
In general, the federal government takes on a large role in natural disasters only when the damage is so widespread that the provincial government requests assistance. Disaster relief funding also comes entirely from the province until the damage hits a certain threshold that triggers federal cost-sharing.
But there is a behind-thescenes role the federal government plays through the Government Operations Centre, an emergency-response facility in Ottawa staffed 24 hours a day. The centre coordinates the exchange of information between federal departments and the different levels of government.
In this case, it also commissioned aerial photography of the damage from Transport Canada to provide to the Ontario and Quebec governments.
Speaking in the House of Commons on Monday, Goodale emphasized that federal officials were in “constant communication” with local officials in case federal assistance is required. “Everyone in the House is thinking of the people who have suffered such loss over the course of this last weekend,” he said.