Audit of the Emergency Management Assistance Program

5.1.1 Legislative Responsibilities of the Minister

The Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development has delegated authority for emergency management under the Indian Act and the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development Act

In Canada, the provinces and territories are responsible for emergency management within their respective jurisdictions; however, the Constitution Act 1867 prescribed the legislative authority of the Government of Canada for "Indians, and Lands reserved for the Indians." This authority is delegated to the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development under the Indian Act and the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development Act.

All federal Ministers are responsible under the 2007 Emergency Management Act "to identify risks that are within or related to their area of responsibility, to develop appropriate emergency management plans in respect of those risks, to maintain, test and implement the plans, and to conduct exercises and training in relation to the plans."^{Footnote 2} The Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development has accepted responsibility for supporting on-reserve First Nation communities in the four pillars of emergency management: mitigation/prevention, preparedness, response and recovery.

5.1.2 Senior Management Engagement

AANDC senior management provides leadership and assumes overall responsibility and accountability for the EMA Program.

The Deputy Minister issued the NEMP in 2009 and again in 2011, with the stated purpose of providing "a national framework for the roles and responsibilities of emergency management: mitigation, preparedness, and response and recovery activities in First Nation communities across Canada."

We found that the Deputy Minister volunteered to have the AANDC Emergency Management Plan evaluated by Public Safety Canada (PSC) in 2011, evidencing his interest in ensuring that an appropriate plan was in place and in line with federal government expectations. More recently, AANDC senior managers have been engaged in reviewing the EMA Program to improve its effectiveness across all four pillars of emergency management, to ensure its long-term sustainability, and to develop guiding principles to support negotiations for comprehensive bilateral emergency management service agreements with the provinces.

Interviews with AANDC senior managers at headquarters and in the regions visited highlighted that they are knowledgeable and actively engaged in the EMA Program, and that they understand the importance of strong relationships with First Nations, provinces, and other partners and stakeholders, including other federal departments such as Health Canada and PSC. AANDC senior managers participate actively in interdepartmental emergency management committees at the Deputy Minister, Assistant Deputy Minister and Director General levels, as well as in the Senior Officials Responsible for Emergency Management (SOREM) forum and the SOREM Aboriginal Emergency Management Working Group, which include participants from AANDC, PSC, the provinces and territories.

5.1.3 The National Emergency Management Plan

The AANDC NEMP establishes governance and management arrangements and provides a comprehensive national framework for the department's EMA Program.

The NEMP is comprehensive and aligned with the Emergency Management Act and with direction issued by Public Safety Canada in its role as the federal lead department for emergency management.

The NEMP sets out an AANDC emergency management governance structure that is consistent with the Federal Emergency Response Plan and that builds on existing internal and interdepartmental governance arrangements. The audit found that Regional Emergency Management Plans replicated the governance and management structures set out in the NEMP, but were inconsistent regarding region-specific information and timely updates.

When the NEMP was first issued in 2009, AANDC committed to undertake a full review of the document at least every three years. The Deputy Minister reissued the NEMPin 2011, providing greater precision to the Minister's responsibility for supporting on-reserve First Nation communities in the four pillars of emergency management.

5.2.1 Overall Program Objectives

AANDC has established broad national objectives for the National Emergency Management Plan:

• protect the health and safety of First Nation communities and individuals;
• meet AANDC's obligations under the Emergency Management Act;
• protect property and infrastructure, First Nations lands, assets, and the environment;
• mitigate the risks of emergencies in First Nation communities through proactive measures;
• ensure a coordinated national approach to emergency management in First Nations communities;
• enhance the capacity of First Nation communities to effectively address emergency situations;
• reduce economic and social losses for First Nations communities; and
• provide guidance for AANDC's emergency management planning and operations in the North.

5.2.2 Program Review and Improvement

AANDC is building internal capacity to undertake program improvement initiatives in response to the need to refocus efforts on establishing bilateral negotiations with each province.

AANDC has reviewed the EMA Program several times in recent years, including a program evaluation in 2009-2010, a performance review focused on the 2011-2012 Manitoba floods, and other assurance activities focused on the administration of program funds. EMD is responding to these reviews by clarifying EMA Program roles and responsibilities, seeking more stable program funding, and developing a performance measurement strategy.

Significant program review work is now under way, including development of options to improve the emergency management response regime for First Nations, collaboration with PSC on a First Nations component for a proposed national disaster mitigation program, and the assessment of long-term funding options to support comprehensive bilateral emergency management service agreements with provincial governments.

We learned that, through the SOREM Aboriginal Emergency Management Working Group, AANDC focused its efforts between July 2010 and December 2012 on negotiating a common national framework through a multilateral process involving all provinces, territories and other federal stakeholders. More recently, the Department has refocused its attention to bilateral negotiations with provinces in light of the multilateral decision not to pursue national overarching principles through the SOREM Aboriginal Emergency Management Working Group. While the department has undertaken program redesign work to define the future success of AANDC‘s emergency management activities for First Nations on reserve, additional efforts are required in negotiating service agreements with provinces, developing an all-hazards risk assessment, implementing mitigation and prevention programming, and enhancing training and exercises.

5.2.3 Performance Measurement

The EMA Program collects insufficient performance information to support program design and management decisions. Work is underway to update the EMA Program Performance Measurement Strategy.

In response to an evaluation of the EMA Program in 2009-2010, EMD initiated work on a Performance Measurement Strategy to assess the program's relevance and performance, and to support planning decisions. The draft 2012-2013 to 2017-2018 version of the Performance Measurement Strategy addresses all four pillars of emergency management and includes five key performance indicators. EMD managers continue to adapt and refine the Performance Measurement Strategy to reflect ongoing progress.

At the time of the audit, AANDC had one performance indicator, the "percentage of First Nation communities with an emergency management plan." We found no documented record of achievement of this performance measure, either in quarterly performance reports or the Departmental Performance Report. While this indicator provides useful information it does not support assessments of the quality of emergency preparedness activities or performance of the other three pillars of the EMA Program. The Audit did find that management establishes annual operational priorities for the program and tracks results against targets on a quarterly basis.

5.3.1 Headquarters Program Implementation

EMD provides effective communication and coordination support to regional staff during emergencies but provides limited support to regions in support of the delivery of emergency mitigation and preparedness activities.

EMD effectively provides regional emergency management managers and staff with coordination and communication support during emergencies. For example, the HQ EM Operations Centre coordinates and monitors emergency management activities impacting First Nation communities from a national perspective and serves as a hub for the flow of emergency-related information to and from HQ and regional offices.

We found that EMD has established annual operational priorities through the departmental business planning and quarterly reporting processes. While these plans effectively establish near term tasks and targets for headquarters-level activities, they include limited consideration of implementation of the EMA Program in regions.

Despite active engagement through national emergency management working groups, federal and provincial governments have not agreed on a nationally consistent approach to deliver EMA Programming on reserve.

A working group established under the intergovernmental SOREM forum and the SOREM Aboriginal Emergency Management Working Group chaired by the Director of EMD and co-chaired by the Director, Public Safety Initiatives, Alberta Emergency Management Agency, commenced work in 2009 on a national framework for the establishment of emergency management agreements between AANDC and provincial governments. During the audit, we were advised by PSC and AANDC officials that the SOREM working groups decided in late 2012 to refocus their activities away from a nationally consistent framework towards a statement of principles document to guide federal-provincial negotiations. In response to this decision to suspend work on a national framework; EMD responded by drafting principles to guide regions in their negotiations with the provinces. This initiative is part of the Department's broader review of the EMA Program and an essential step in supporting regions in negotiations with the respective provinces.

AANDC has not completed an all-hazards risk assessment to support its mitigation and preparedness activities.

Under the 2007 Emergency Management Act, all federal Ministers are responsible for identifying "risks that are within or related to their area of responsibility,"^{Footnote 3} as the basis for preparing, maintaining, testing and implementing emergency management plans in respect of those risks. Public Safety Canada issued methodology guidelines in 2011-2012 to assist federal government institutions "in fulfilling their legislative responsibility to conduct mandate-specific risk assessments as the basis for EM planning."^{Footnote 4}

We found that most AANDC risk identification and assessment activities under the EMA Program are short-term, and tend to focus on upcoming floods, fires and other recurring natural disasters. AANDC maintains "community profiles" that identify the critical infrastructure of communities which are prone to floods, their capacity and whether they have emergency plans in place and firefighting capability.

The Department does not regularly conduct medium to long-term all-hazards risk assessments for First Nation communities at the national level nor were regional risk assessments developed in the three regions visited during audit fieldwork. The audit team learned that Public Safety Canada is exploring the possibility of developing a national all-hazards risk registry with information that could be relevant to the risks facing Canada's First Nations communities.

A more strategic and comprehensive approach to risk identification and assessment (combining AANDC, PSC, provincial and First Nations efforts) would help inform AANDC mitigation and preparedness activities, support departmental funding requests, raise awareness of the potential impact of emergencies beyond natural disasters, and inform short-, medium- and long-term planning, including for types of emergencies that have not occurred or that might increase in frequency and severity in future.

5.3.2 Regional Program Implementation

Emergency management is a shared responsibility in Canada, starting with individual citizens who are expected to prepare for disasters and to contribute to the resilience of their communities. Provincial and territorial governments have responsibility within their respective jurisdictions, while the federal government exercises leadership at the national level and in relation to Federal Reserve lands and other exclusive fields of jurisdiction.

AANDC depends on provincial governments for the delivery of emergency response and recovery services. While only four provinces have agreements, all provinces visited during the audit have assumed responsibility for response.

Emergency management programming at AANDC is designed on the principle that the Department will negotiate agreements with the provinces to respond to emergencies in First Nation communities in exchange for reimbursement of eligible expenditures. The purpose of these collaborative agreements is to ensure that First Nation communities "have access to comparable emergency assistance services available to other non-aboriginal communities in their respective provinces."^{Footnote 5}

At the time of the audit, AANDC had agreements in place with Alberta and Saskatchewan, while letters and Memoranda of Understanding had been established with British Columbia and Nova Scotia. Through interviews with regional program managers we found that provinces without formal, written agreements with AANDC have nevertheless provided the department with verbal assurance that they will respond to emergencies in First Nations communities. The province of Manitoba is a notable exception because the provincial government has deemed emergency management support to First Nation communities an exclusively federal responsibility.

Regions have developed regional Emergency Management Plans, with varying levels of region-specific direction and guidance.

According to the NEMP, AANDC regions are responsible for developing, exercising, implementing and maintaining Regional Emergency Management Plans. We found inconsistency among the plans in the three regions visited, including in the level of detail and clarity with respect to region-specific roles and responsibilities, concepts of operations, and linkages to other stakeholders, including provincial emergency management organizations. In two regions, the regional plans mimicked the NEMP and included only limited region-specific information. The other regional plan was comprehensive and addressed emergency operations processes, links to provincial emergency social and health services, environmental forecasts, and provided guidance on the provincial disaster relief program. This plan also included annexes with regional reporting templates and First Nations community risk inventories. This approach is a best practice which should be shared with other AANDC regions.

In collaboration with their provincial counterparts, AANDC regional staff responds effectively to emergencies affecting First Nations communities.

According to the NEMP, the responsibility for identifying and initiating a response to an emergency rests with the local First Nations community and the appropriate provincial emergency management organization, while the role of AANDC (when necessary) is to "provide logistics coordination support in response to a provincial request", including providing "linkages to other departments and various suppliers so the requested resources are provided to the designated emergency hazard area."

We examined in detail how AANDC regions responded to a variety of specific emergencies in First Nation communities since April 2011. In every case, we found that regional staff members worked capably and effectively and in close collaboration with other partners. The work of regional staff in the response phase was often more robust and complex than the NEMP description, in some cases because of the lack of an agreement with the province. For example, in one province, a regional employee negotiated service and funding agreements with municipal-level communities identified by the province as potential "hosts" for evacuated First Nations residents, and other regional employees were deployed as liaison officers to these host communities. In this capacity, they served as liaison between the evacuees and the responding organizations, provided translation services if required, kept AANDC senior management updated, and pre-approved expenditures. In another region, the Emergency Management Coordinator was responsible for assisting First Nations with financial support, the identification of technical resources and engineering and construction firms and the availability of heavy equipment.

In all responses examined, we found that AANDC regional EMA staff and communications staff collaborated on providing regular situation reports to senior AANDC officials and to the Headquarters EM Operations Centre, First Nation communities, provincial and territorial emergency management organizations, PSC, non-government and local governments and municipalities.

Standard operating procedures for responding to emergency situations vary in thoroughness and completeness from region to region.

Standard operating procedures are important tools for achieving a uniform emergency response by employees across an organization. The audit found that not all AANDC regions have standard operating procedures and that those in place varied considerably.

In one Region, a Senior Officer's Desk Book provided explicit direction on provincial emergency management procedures, contacts, local emergency plans, links to emergency social services, environmental forecasts, templates for reporting to senior management, and guidelines for eligible costs. A second region had a handbook that included emergency contact lists, phone and fax numbers, evacuation service standards and guidelines, and templates for recording daily evacuation event, while a third region's standard operating procedures were limited to EMD templates for issuing notifications on emergency incidents.

While the audit found that post-emergency after-action reports were completed for a majority of emergencies reviewed, these documents did not always include AANDC-specific lessons learned, and recommendations were not always followed through.

After-action reports are an important tool for AANDC to learn from their own and others' experiences, successes and failures in managing emergencies. The NEMP establishes expectations of when and how regions are to prepare after-action reports and provide them to EMD.

In the regions we visited, we found no consistency in the regional approaches to the preparation of after-action reports, or in how progress on opportunities was tracked for improvement for the regions visited. Some regional Emergency Management Coordinators advised the audit team that responsibility for drafting after-action reports lies with the First Nations affected by emergency situation or with the provinces. The lack of standardized after-action reports can impede efforts to improve stakeholder relations and EMA programming at both regional and national levels.

5.3.3 Four Pillars of Emergency Management

Emergency Management planning should be based on all four pillar of emergency management. We found that emergency management plans in all regions visited covered the four pillars: prevention/mitigation; preparedness; response and recovery. The amount of programming attention and funding directed to each component varied from region to region and from year to year, depending on such factors as the frequency of emergencies affecting First Nation communities, the extent of recovery activities under way, and variations in A-base funding for mitigation and preparedness work.

5.4.1 Administering Recipient Funding Agreements

The EMA Program Terms and Conditions (EMA Program Ts&Cs), approved in November 2004, first came into effect in April 2005. The EMA Program Ts&Cs were last updated and approved by the Minister in February 2013 to increase the maximum amount payable to any one recipient from $5 million to $10 million. The EMA Program's Ts&Cs describe the program objectives as well as the types of activities and expenditures which can be funded through contribution agreements. We completed an analysis of the current and prior EMA Program Ts&Cs and found that they are ambiguous about what types of projects and expenditures can be funded under this authority. More specifically, they are internally inconsistent about whether capital recovery and mitigations projects may be funded.

Section 5 of the EMA Program Ts&Cs describe "Eligible Initiatives and Projects" as virtually any emergency mitigation, preparedness, response or recovery project, while Section 6,"Type and Nature of Eligible Expenditure", makes it clear that mitigation and recovery expenditures of a capital nature are specifically not eligible. Departmental officials confirmed that capital projects are funded through the Capital Facilities and Maintenance Program which provides for these types of projects, despite financial transactions being coded to the EMA Program account codes. Our analysis of the evolution of the EMA Program Ts&Cs between 2004 and 2013 indicates that the defining of eligible projects and initiatives occurred in 2010 when all AANDC program terms and conditions were redrafted to conform to changes to the Policy on Transfer Payments.

The EMA Program Authority is ambiguous about whether capital projects for recovery and mitigation are eligible.

Given that emergency management recovery projects of a capital nature have been consistently approved, capital reconstruction projects appear to be in keeping with their intended use of the funds. Accordingly, we have concluded that the Department was within its authorities to fund capital related projects administered by First Nations and provinces through its approved Program Ts&Cs for Capital Facilities and Maintenance and that such spending is most likely in line with the intended use of funds. However, we found that financial coding and reporting controls were inadequate for tracking EMA Program transactions that were administered under the Capital Facilities and Maintenance program authority (i.e. these costs were coded to the EMA Program in the financial system and reports and not tracked against the CFM program authority).

Our audit affirmed the need for all regions to better define eligible EMA Program expenditures or funding formulae through bilateral agreements with provinces and to ensure consistency with EMA Program Ts&Cs and Capital Facilities and Maintenance Ts&Cs.

In the absence of bilateral agreements with provinces defining eligible expenses and authorization requirements, regions cannot effectively scrutinize invoices downstream.

While we did not perform in-depth testing of transfer payment files, we did assess a small sample of funding agreements and corresponding invoices and payments to determine whether regions had designed appropriate financial management control processes for administering EMA Program contribution agreements. The audit found that AANDC's regional processes varied considerably and that this approach was necessary considering that provincial approaches to the delivery of emergency management differ from province to province. In most regions there is no clear understanding with provinces about what types of expenditures will be reimbursed by AANDC and whether pre-authorization is required for some or all types of expenditures. Notwithstanding the existence of ambiguity in what is and is not eligible, we found that some regions exercised greater scrutiny than others in reviewing invoices and reconciling claims. For example two regions in the scope of the audit principally relied upon provincial or municipal authorities to ensure that all claims were valid and supported by invoices. The other two regions reported that they reviewed invoices and claims in depth and sought clarification from recipients as required.

Our audit intended to assess reconciliation processes for situations where an advance payment or reimbursement of expenditures had been initially paid by AANDC and it was later determined to be an eligible claim under Public Safety Canada's DFAA Program. We were unable to test these reconciliation controls given that there were no such transactions in our scope period for the three regions visited (i.e. Public Safety Canada was two to five years in arrears in processing transactions so any such reconciliations had not yet occurred). Through interviews with regional financial staff, the audit found that approaches varied across regions for handling claims that may be eligible under the Public Safety Canada DFAA Program. One region had agreed with Public Safety Canada that AANDC would pay for the costs of certain emergencies, but treatment of other emergencies in the province remained unclear.

Acronyms related to Canadian Standards Association Standard on Emergency Management Programs:

CSA Z1600 – 4: Program Management
CSA Z1600 – 5: Planning
CSA Z1600 – 6: Implementation
CSA Z1600 – 7: Exercises, Evaluations and Corrective Actions
CSA Z1600 – 8: Management Review