Establishing a Provincial Level of Service for Emergency Social Services

When a host municipality agrees to accept evacuees from another municipality, reserve, Metis settlement, or from outside of the province, they are doing so in good faith and trying to help others in their time of need. 

Unfortunately, the result is a significant disruption of services provided to its own residents. Even worse, local taxpayers are often saddled with a portion of the costs that have been determined ineligible under a Disaster Recovery Program (DRP).  This should not be happening when the host community is not the one experiencing the emergency. 

During an emergency when a host municipality is asked to accept evacuees on short notice, there is verbal reassurance that all costs will be covered, but there is not enough time to prepare a written agreement. Consequently, the details are subject to individual interpretation. The time decision-making takes can’t keep pace with the speed with which issues are evolving. Even when trying to clarify expectations and eligibility for cost recovery through the province, the answers will vary from one day to the next as staff changes occur and new staff are unaware of previous decisions. 

Host municipalities are also asked to apply for DRP funding to recover their costs, even though they were not the community that had the emergency. This process extends the time to recover costs well beyond their fiscal year-end, forcing them to carry those costs forward sometimes for years. In many cases, a very large portion of costs have gone unrecovered. 

The rules established for Disaster Recovery Programs are often referred to by staff of the province to answer Level of Service questions. There are several problems with this approach because there are several assumptions made in the DRP rules that do not apply to the host community. DRP rules are intended as a cost-sharing arrangement between the federal and provincial governments and the affected municipality. An example of this is regular staff time not being covered, only overtime. For the host municipality that forces them to subsidize the emergency costs of another municipality. 

Many of the problems faced by host municipalities can be prevented if the province creates a Level of Service for Emergency Social Services for Hosting an External Community. This Level of Service should list the services that are required to meet an evacuee’s “Basic Survival Needs”, services that are discretionary and require approval of the Director of Emergency Management, and what services are eligible for cost recovery. 

This Level of Service must be created without using the lens of the Disaster Recovery Program rules.