WHEREAS municipalities and regional districts responding to extraordinary emergency events such as wildfires and floods dedicate resources, including employees, to responding to events; AND WHEREAS such response places a financial burden on the responding agency, because staff regular hours worked during emergency events are not paid for by the federal and provincial governments and at the same time staff are unable to perform their regular duties while protecting government-owned resources: THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the federal government Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness be requested to amend the FederalProvincial Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements and the provincial government be requested to amend the Compensation and Disaster Financial Assistance Regulation to allow local government to recover 100 of both regular time and overtime salaries of employees directly involved in responding to an extraordinary emergency event where a state of local or provincial emergency is declared.
MINISTRY OF PUBLIC SAFETY AND SOLICITOR GENERAL Local authorities are responsible for providing emergency services for their citizens. The province financially supports local authorities with incremental and extraordinary costs for employees involved in emergency response and recovery. The Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements DFAA are determined by the federal government without consultation with the provinces. DFAA reform has been proposed over the last 15 years.
MINISTRY OF PUBLIC SAFETY AND EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS CANADA PSEPC administers the Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements DFAA on behalf of the Government of Canada. These arrangements were established to assist the provincial territorial governments when the cost of dealing with a disaster would place an undue burden on the provincial or territorial economy. The DFAA were established in 1970 and have been applied almost exclusively to natural disasters. Since their inception, the Government of Canada has provided over 1.5 billion in support to provinces and territories following such disasters as the 1997 Red River Flood, the 1998 Ice Storm and the Forest Fires in British Columbia in 2003. It is worth noting that all financial assistance to municipalities is provided by the province territory under provincial territorial criteria, and the DFAA cost shares eligible provincial territorial expenditures. While the DFAA have worked well over the years and are much appreciated by the provinces and territories, a number of questions of application, administration and eligibility have arisen over time. As a result, PSEPC has undertaken a review of the DFAA and has received comments from the provinces and territories as well as other stakeholders, such as the Canadian Red Cross, regarding proposed changes. I appreciate being informed of the Union of British Columbia Municipalities resolution regarding compensation for employee regular working hours in extraordinary emergency events and assure you that it will be taken into consideration by PSEPC.