Feds respond to disaster mitigation

The federal government has taken an important step forward toward natural disaster mitigation with the creation of a new disaster handling agency, the Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness (OCIPEP), says the Insurance Bureau’s president George Anderson. “This is a positive step by the federal government to build safer and more resilient communities.”

The OCIPEP will fall under the Ministry of Defence and will fulfill many of the responsibilities currently carried out by Emergency Preparedness Canada (EPC). Margaret Purdy will head up the new organization.

Paul Kovacs, executive director of the IBC’s sister association, the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction (ICLR), says the government’s move to consolidate disaster mitigation and response through one organization is a sign of political commitment to take action against recurring high-risk losses. “This new office demonstrates the strong leadership and commitment to protect Canadians that we’ve been looking for from Ottawa.” The establishment of the OCIPEP is also seen as a step in the direction toward the ICLR’s lobbying campaign for a national government disaster reduction plan.

The IBC’s director of policy and research, Jane Voll adds, “we’re absolutely happy it [the OCIPEP] was formed, it brings a senior and knowledgeable civil servant to the post which will help move along some initiatives like a national mitigation strategy. Overall, it’s an important bolstering of federal leadership in moving from disaster response to prevention.” Voll confirms that few details have been made available by the government with regard to how the OCIPEP will be able to more effectively deal with disaster mitigation/response than the current EPC, nor the budget allocation which will be made available to the new body. However, she points out that the OCIPEP will have more management autonomy than has been the case with the ERC, plus the new body’s mandate includes mitigation whereas the EPC’s focus has always been primarily disaster response initiatives. “We will also be meeting with the OCIPEP shortly to discuss how the insurance industry can work with them, and hopefully further details such as budget allocation will become available later this year when a discussion paper will be released,” Voll says.