York Region, Red Cross working on deal for emergency humanitarian aid

Yorkregion.com
Feb. 7, 2017
By Lisa Queen

Pointing to the 2009 Vaughan tornado, the 2011 Sutton fire and the 2013 ice storm as incidents where there were challenges delivering emergency social services to residents, York Region is working toward a partnership agreement with the Canadian Red Cross to provide humanitarian aid in future emergencies.

The proposal, which involves the region, the nine local municipalities and the Red Cross, will kick in for emergencies where at least 25 households could require evacuation, said Lisa Gonsalves, the region’s director of strategies and partnerships in the community and health services department.

It will cover things such as providing shelter, food, clothing and information about accessing other social services.

While emergency social services have been provided by the Red Cross and other agencies in the past, the agreement will establish formal responses, Gonsalves said.

The Red Cross declined to comment until the agreement is signed.

While residents received the assistance they needed during the tornado, fire and ice storm, the incidents made it clear the region’s emergency humanitarian-aid response could be better, Gonsalves said.

 “It put our emergency plans to the test in those specific incidents and what we really found was that...because of the good relationship we have with our local municipalities and agencies such as Red Cross and others, we were able to mobilize. But what we found was there was a need to be clearer in terms of who was supposed to do what and who had the final say on certain things.

“We had identified reception centres and community centres we could use to evacuate. But we hadn’t, at that time, formalized who would open them, who would make the call, who would organize the response...Everyone came to our beck and call but when people came to respond, sometimes it was unclear who was in charge.”

No residents were left without assistance during the incidents, Gonsalves said.

“Everyone was supported because we had all hands on deck,” she said.

“We mobilized ourselves as best we could. No one slipped through the cracks in any of those events.”

The agreement makes sense in a growing and changing region, Gonsalves said.

“Right now, we have a very large and growing region and with the population growth, with the fact that we have a two-tier government (the region and the local municipalities) system in York Region with 10 governments essentially, we felt it was time to formalize this goodwill relationship that we have with the Red Cross so that we could be more sure in an emergency that we would be able to respond in a way that would meet the needs of residents who are displaced,” she said.

The agreement will cost $103,000 a year, which will be used to increase the Red Cross’s ability to respond to emergencies by boosting resources and training volunteers, Gonsalves said.

“It works out to be about 10 cents per person based on the 2011 Census,” she said.