Whereas the Province of British Columbia has established the Emergency Program Act which requires local governments to prepare for and provide emergency response to its residents; And whereas the Province of British Columbia is in the process of conducting a review of the Emergency Program Act; And whereas local government, especially, regional districts with large geographic areas have very limited physical and financial resources to plan, assess threats to health, safety, property and the environment and to respond to and implement recovery initiatives for disaster and emergency events: Therefore be it resolved that the Province work collaboratively with local governments to provide physical and human resources to support emergency response and disaster events.
Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure - Emergency Management BC Government is committed to supporting local authorities, inclusive of regional districts, in the provision of emergency and disaster response activities and programs. A key tenet of emergency management is that local authorities and the Provincial government coordinate in an integrated and coordinated response to emergencies. The Emergency Program Act states that a local authority is at all times responsible for the direction and control of the local authoritys emergency response. Furthermore, in accordance with the Emergency Program Act Regulation section 22c, the Province must assist local authorities with response to or recovery from emergencies or disasters that are of such magnitude that the local authorities are incapable of effectively responding to or recovering from them. Experience has shown that the great majority of emergencies are handled locally with little or no direct assistance from the Province; in these cases the Province does help indirectly by reimbursing local authorities for any incremental costs associated with emergency response e.g. overtime, equipment rental, contractors providing specialist support. In larger events such as regional flooding, landslides and interface wildfires, the Province delivers direct assistance to local authorities by providing guidance and coordinating additional resource support. While the Emergency Program Act is under review, the aforementioned principles would be unlikely to change even if the Act were to be repealed and replaced. The Province is also developing a multi-year training and exercise plan. The Province conducted its first major exercise in June 2016 Exercise Coastal Response. This exercise involved over 65 government agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations, more than 600 emergency management personnel and more than 400 volunteers from Port Alberni, Ucluelet and Bamfield. The Province and municipalities conducted pre-exercise training and used the exercise to develop emergency management expertise and identify areas for improvement. The Provinces multi-year training and exercise program will build on this success to sustain and enhance emergency response core capabilities of the Province and local and regional authorities through their integration and participation in the exercises. Through this exercise plan, coordination and stakeholder integration will be practiced and strengthened. Recognizing that local authorities with large geographic areas of jurisdiction and with limited physical and financial resources face distinctively demanding challenges, government is committed to supporting local authorities with emergency management planning guidance, training, funding of incremental response costs and direct support for large scale emergencies; however, this support relies upon local authorities, who know their jurisdictions best, to exercise leadership and help guide those resources effectively.