The B.C. government is looking for input from various stakeholders as it seeks to modernize its emergency management legislation.
Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth says the province is releasing a discussion paper that outlines a proposed direction for the legislation.
“There’s a significant amount of expertise and experience in this province. We have local government and First Nations Leaders, emergency management experts and responders who know the score first hand,” he said.
“We want to draw upon this knowledge to create legislation that reflects what communities require to mitigate risks, and prepare for, respond to, and recover from emergencies.”
The work is being done in the aftermath of unprecedented flood and wildfire seasons of 2017 and 2018.
“We’ve already done a lot of work to make emergency management improvements. What we learned from the fires and floods of the last few years has led to the Abbott-Chapman review, the report from the Tsilhqot’in National Government,” Farnworth said.
“It’s led to our province’s adoption of the United Nation’s Sendai framework, which calls for an all of society approach to risk reduction.”
The goal, according to the Minister is to help the province manage emergencies more effectively.
“And that we need to lead the province in a direction that addresses current challenges and prepared us for the future. We need an emergency management system that does more than react to events.,” added Farnworth.
“We need a system that builds on all four pillars of our work – preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery.”
Feedback will be sought until the end of next January, and Farnworth says updated legislation is expected to be introduced in the fall of 2020.
The emergency management act is B.C.’s main law that governs disaster risk management. It also outlines the roles and responsibilities for provincial and local governments in preparing, responding and recovering from emergencies.
It also includes the conditions under which governments can declare a state of emergency.
