New Brunswick Advanced ICS Session Adjourns

As the Advanced Incident Command System course concludes in Saint John New Brunswick there are a number of thank-yous to extend. We were fortunate to have Sandy McKinnon ICS Coordinator attend and lead a discussion about the upcoming work of ICS Canada, alignment with the US through our International Compacts and curriculum considerations for the future. Our hosts Government of New Brunswick NB Emergency Measures Organization. My Co-Instructors from Emergency Solutions International Troy McQuinn, CEM, ABCP, DBCI, PCP and NBEMO Les Weber, CD . On our team Jonathan Gillan handled all logistics and administration for the forum.

This course focused upon complex incidents and simultaneous complex incidents and Saint John is a great place to discuss these concepts as we have seen numerous natural and human accidental incidents which fell into these categories. The strength of the particular group was based upon the individual and organizational representation which included: Joint Task Force Atlantic, DND PEOC Liaison Function, RCMP, Medavie, Horizon Health, Saint John Fire / EMO, Kennebecasis Fire/EMO and GNB Department Natural Resources Energy Dev. These participants and instructors left their operational roles and hats behind and jumped into leadership roles within Command and General Staff to work in 3 groups to solve complex community risk scenarios.

There was significant discussion within the course around the concept of Area Command, its application, utility and relevance. I believe these leaders will be contributing to the further study of elements of the curriculum in relation to their operations, risk interdependencies and preparation.

The Group also agreed there should be more New Brunswick delivery of the Advanced and Section Chief courses ideally 4 per year. We are looking forward to possibly delivering Logistics Section Chief, Situation Unit Leader, Planning Section Chief and a second ICS 400 in that order throughout 2023. If you are interested in any of these please reach out.

Thanks to the group for their tremendous and passionate participation it was a fun session and the Instructor Team enjoyed learning from you!

Our national resiliency is built from the boots on the ground up. With these leaders looking after their services and jointly our communities New Brunswick is truly #SecureResilientCompetitive