Critical Infrastructure Assessment Tool for Local Governments in Canada
Darren Blackburn, Ron Bowles (JIBC) & Stakeholders from EMBC and DRDC-CSS

INTRODUCTION/BACKGROUND
In 2014-2015, representatives from the JIBC Emergency Management Division
and the Centre for Applied Research engaged with Emergency Management
British Columbia and Defence Research and Development Canada – Centre for
Security Science on the development and completion of a critical infrastructure
assessment tool for use by local governments. The aim of the tool is to enhance
a municipality’s awareness and understanding of CI, and assist them with
identifying and analyzing their assets, outputs goods and services, relevant
hazards that may impact their assets, and the dependencies among assets,
output goods & services, external CI service providers, and the community.
The project involved creating progressive iterations of the tool, educational
materials, and supporting facilitation materials for use by community members.
Following each iteration, a pilot workshop was delivered in order to gather
evidence regarding the capability and effectiveness of the tool and supporting
materials. Gathered data was analyzed to identify changes to the project
deliverables.
The output of the project will be a tool and materials set that will allow a
community to examine the critical dependencies between locally-owned assets
and the goods and services provided to the public. A community that engages
with the tool will be able to create a report that identifies important and critical
dependencies, possible disruptions via hazards, and community components
that can be impacted. The report will also identify a number of assets that are
determined to be “top priority” – meaning, assets that are critical for the
functioning of other assets. These assets are then analyzed in relation to the four
pillars of emergency management as follows:
• Mitigation: What financial & resource planning is required to support
this asset?
• Preparation: What resources can be allocated to back-up or serve
as a contingency in the event the asset fails/is damaged/is
unavailable?
• Response: What activities need to be performed to protect the asset
during an emergency? To assess damage to the asset? To
determine the length and extent of outages should the asset be
unavailable?
• Recovery: If damaged or destroyed, should the asset be fixed?
Replaced? Replaced with another option?
The tool and materials have been used in workshops delivered in the Fraser
Valley Regional District and in Port Coquitlam. A final test of the tool and
materials is scheduled for March 2015.

Fig 1. CI Assessment Tool –Goods & Services & Asset Dependencies

Fig 2. CI Assessment Tool – Asset Dependencies on External Service Providers

JUSTICE INSTITUTE OF BRITISH COLUMBIA