ARCHIVED - Food-borne Illness Emergency Response Plan (FI ERP)

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The Emergency Management Act requires all Ministers to ensure that their departments, agencies or Crown Corporations have emergency preparedness plans to deal with civil emergencies related to their areas of accountability. The Minister of the Department of Health for Canada (Public Health Agency of Canada and Health Canada) is accountable for developing and maintaining civil emergency plans for public health protection, emergency health services and the well-being of Canadians. The scope of accountability includes food-borne illness emergencies.

The Health Portfolio’s Food-borne Illness Emergency Response Plan (FI ERP) is issued under the authority of the Minister of Health by the Chief Public Health Officer of the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) and the Deputy Minister of Health Canada (HC) to meet the legislative requirements outlined in the Emergency Management Act.

The FI ERP is a “hazard-specific” plan. It forms an Annex to the “all-hazards” and overarching Health Portfolio Emergency Response Plan (HP ERP). The FI ERP is intended to guide Health Portfolio (HP) response activities in the event of a food-borne illness emergency; it has been developed at the federal level predominantly for federal HP staff. It is linked to Canada’s Food-borne Illness Outbreak Response Protocol (FIORP) in that it may be utilized when additional federal support and leadership is requested to support a response initiated under the FIORP. The FIORP is a stand-alone protocol which is a product of Federal/Provincial/Territorial (F/P/T) collaboration and is routinely used for food-borne illness outbreaks affecting more than one province/territory or country.

One of the key roles of the HP is to provide scientific, public health and communication support, and resources to handle the increased information and communications requirements and tempo of operation once a food-borne event becomes an emergency. This support is primarily intended to ensure that F/P/T efforts guided by FIORP are focused and well supported and there is an efficient mechanism in place by which federal authorities together with Provincial/Territorial (P/T) counterparts will coordinate and approve actions and messages. This support can also extend to other federal departments and international counterparts when required.

The HP ERP establishes the strategic response framework for federal HP response while the FI ERP provides specific guidance regarding application of the framework to food-borne illness emergencies. The details of the operational F/P/T response are retained in the FIORP. This combination of documents defines the scope and framework within which PHAC and HC operate to respond to a food-borne illness emergency.

The FI ERP was developed and is maintained by the Centre for Emergency Preparedness and Response (CEPR), within PHAC. It was developed in collaboration with PHAC’s Centre for Food-borne, Environmental and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (CFEZID), Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). The Joint Emergency Preparedness Committee (JEPC) is responsible for the approval of the FI ERP as an annex to the HP ERP. In the event of an emergency, actions and decisions may be taken in consultation with senior management to alter or override anticipated strategies outlined in this plan.