By Dr. Alan Bostakian, MCMP, FIoL
How Ontario’s Provincial Emergency Management Strategy and Provincial Emergency Response Plan reflect the United Nations’ Sendai Framework, ISO 22361:2022 (Crisis Management Guidelines) and the ACMP Standard for Change Management.
Introduction
Ontario has built a coherent and steadily maturing emergency management system. Its Provincial Emergency Management Strategy and Action Plan, A Safe, Practiced and Prepared Ontario, set a clear vision and committed the province to annual public reporting on progress, a first in Canada. The Provincial Emergency Response Plan (PERP), first published in 2019 and most recently updated in October 2025, gives that vision an operating backbone.
Read side by side with the world’s most respected frameworks, the mentioned documents line up remarkably well. That is worth saying out loud, because alignment that emerges from practice, rather than from a compliance exercise, is the mark of a mature system.
This article reads Ontario’s work through three lenses: the United Nations Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030, ISO 22361:2022 Crisis Management Guidelines and the ACMP Standard for Change Management©. Together they cover what a resilient society must reduce, how an organization builds crisis capability, and how people and institutions actually change.
What Ontario has built
In three years, Ontario has moved from a strategy on paper to a dedicated institution with a modernized legal footing.
- A clear strategy (2023). The Provincial Emergency Management Strategy and Action Plan sets one vision (a safe, practiced and prepared Ontario), five principles (transparent and accountable; accessible and inclusive; proactive and nimble; collaborative; courageous and innovative) and three goals: one window for all Ontarians, proactive planning and monitoring, and practiced and prepared emergency response.
- An operating plan (2019, updated 2025). The PERP sets out a graduated approach to response, an Incident Management System (IMS), a 24/7 Provincial Emergency Operations Centre (PEOC) with three response levels, standardized response priorities, an information management cycle, and formal after-action and improvement planning.
- A dedicated ministry. Emergency Management Ontario became the Ministry of Emergency Preparedness and Response, with Ontario’s first Minister of Emergency Preparedness and Response.
- A modernized law. The Emergency Management Modernization Act, 2025 (Bill 25) received Royal Assent on December 3, 2025. It strengthens the ministry’s coordinating role, recognizes Ontario Corps as a provincial resource and gives municipalities more flexibility.
- Results on the record. The 2025 annual report describes 79 exercises and drills, 36 per cent more people trained than in 2024, Ontario’s first Provincial Risk Assessment, and an Ontario Corps network able to deploy specialized equipment and personnel anywhere in the province within 24 to 72 hours.
Already aligned with the world’s leading frameworks
Ontario’s plans meet each of the three frameworks on its own terms.
The United Nations Sendai Framework: shared responsibility, made operational
The Sendai Framework holds that each State has “the primary responsibility to prevent and reduce disaster risk” while recognizing that “it is a shared responsibility between Governments and relevant stakeholders,” and that disaster risk reduction “requires an all-of-society engagement and partnership.” The PERP states the same idea in Ontario’s own words: emergency management “is a shared responsibility that includes individuals and families; unincorporated communities; First Nations, municipal, provincial, and federal governments; non-governmental organizations (NGOs); and other involved organizations such as the private sector and CI owners and operators.”
The fit continues across all four Sendai priorities. Ontario’s hazard identification and risk assessment program and its first Provincial Risk Assessment reflect Priority 1, understanding disaster risk. The one-window governance model, the Cabinet Committee on Emergency Management and the Modernization Act reflect Priority 2, strengthening disaster risk governance. The Build Back Better pilot and the Community Emergency Preparedness Grant reflect Priority 3, investing in disaster risk reduction for resilience. The Provincial Exercise Program, Ontario Corps and the PERP itself reflect Priority 4, enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response and to “Build Back Better”. Ontario’s strategy even uses Sendai’s own phrase, “build back better,” in its glossary.
ISO 22361: a crisis capability built in layers
ISO 22361 describes crisis capability in three layers: seven principles (governance, strategy, risk management, decision-making, communication, ethics and learning), a framework (leadership, structure, culture and competence), and a process running from anticipation and assessment through prevention, preparedness, response and recovery to continual improvement.
Ontario’s system has all three. Its governance chain runs from Cabinet through the Commissioner to the PEOC. Its structure is the IMS. Its process is the five-component emergency management cycle the strategy places at its centre. The PERP’s IMS 1001 Incident Action Plan, renewed every operational period and supported by regular event coordination briefings, mirrors the standard’s crisis management team cycle of situational awareness, assessment, objectives, planning, implementation and evaluation. The PERP’s provision for after-action reviews following prolonged provincial activations, which should be completed within six months of the end of response activities, with corrective actions tracked and reported to stakeholders annually, is ISO’s learning principle in practice.
The ACMP Standard: preparedness as a change in behaviour
The ACMP Standard treats change as a process that runs from evaluating impact and readiness, through strategy, planning and execution, to closing the effort and sustaining the outcome. Its central insight is that individual behaviour change is essential to change and to its return on investment.
Ontario’s strategy is built on that insight. Its very title promises a province that is practiced, not merely planned. Annual exercise requirements, the “Exercise in a Box” toolkit, updated municipal training, public readiness campaigns and First Nations-led capacity building are all mechanisms for turning plans into habits. In ACMP terms, they are the learning and development, readiness and sustainability strategies that make a change last.
The alignment matrix
Eleven of Ontario’s core commitments map directly onto specific provisions of all three frameworks.
For each commitment below, references are to the UN’s Sendai Framework 2015–2030, ISO 22361:2022 Crisis Management and the ACMP Standard for Change Management.
Shared responsibility across individuals, communities, governments, NGOs and the private sector (PERP 1.4.1)
- Sendai: Guiding principles 19(a), 19(b), 19(d); para. 35 shared responsibility
- ISO 22361: 4.5.2 Governance: roles understood at all levels
- ACMP: 4.5 Organizational and individual change; 5.1.7 Identify stakeholders
One window for coordination; Cabinet Committee, Deputy Ministers Steering Committee and Commissioner (Strategy Goal 1; PERP 1.4.2)
- Sendai: Priority 2; 27(g) coordination forums with clearly assigned responsibilities
- ISO 22361: 5.2.2 Leadership; 5.2.3 Structure
- ACMP: 5.1.4 Roles and responsibilities; 5.1.6 Sponsors; 5.2.3 Sponsorship strategy
New ministry and Emergency Management Modernization Act, 2025
- Sendai: 27(g) responsibilities set “through laws, regulations, standards and procedures”; 27(i) role of parliamentarians
- ISO 22361: 4.5.2 Governance; 4.5.3 Strategy
- ACMP: 5.1.1 Define the change; 5.1.3 Vision of the future state
Vulnerable populations at the centre; equitable service (Strategy principles; PERP 4.6)
- Sendai: 19(d) inclusive, accessible and non-discriminatory participation
- ISO 22361: 4.5.7 Ethics; 6.2.2 Wider interested-party impact
- ACMP: 5.1.7 Stakeholders affected; 5.2.4 Stakeholder engagement strategy
Partnership with First Nations; Traditional Knowledge in monitoring (Strategy Goal 2)
- Sendai: 24(i) traditional, Indigenous and local knowledge; 27(h) working with Indigenous peoples
- ISO 22361: 5.2.4 Culture
- ACMP: 5.1.11 Assess organizational culture(s)
Hazard identification and risk assessment; first Provincial Risk Assessment; 24/7 monitoring (Strategy Goal 2; PERP 3.4, 6.5)
- Sendai: Priority 1; 24(a)–(c) data, baselines, risk information
- ISO 22361: 4.5.4 Risk management; 5.3.1 Anticipation; 5.3.2 Assessment
- ACMP: 5.1.8 Change impact assessment; 5.1.10 External factors; 5.1.16 Change risks
Information management cycle: collect, confirm, analyze, share; emergency public information (PERP 4.4, 6.15)
- Sendai: 24(f) real-time data; 33(b) emergency communications
- ISO 22361: 4.5.6 Communication; Clause 8 Crisis communication
- ACMP: 5.1.14 Communication needs; 5.2.2 Communication strategy
IMS, standardized response priorities and an Incident Action Plan every operational period (PERP 4.5, 5.2, 6.8)
- Sendai: 33(a) preparedness and contingency plans
- ISO 22361: 4.5.5 Decision-making; 5.3.5 Response; Clause 7
- ACMP: 5.3.3 Feedback mechanisms; 5.4.2 Modify plans as required
Training, the Provincial Exercise Program and annual exercises (Strategy Goals 2 and 3; PERP 7.1, 7.2)
- Sendai: 24(g) training and peer learning; 33(f) training; 33(h) regular exercises and drills
- ISO 22361: 4.5.8 Learning; 5.2.5 Competence; Clause 9
- ACMP: 5.1.15 Learning capabilities; 5.2.5 Readiness strategy; 5.2.6 Learning and development strategy
Ontario Corps surge capacity; PPE and critical supplies stockpile (Strategy Goal 3)
- Sendai: 33(d) stockpiling; 33(f) voluntary workers; 33(g) continuity of operations
- ISO 22361: 4.4 Readiness to respond and recover; 5.3.4 Preparedness
- ACMP: 5.1.12 Capacity for change; 5.2.1 Resource strategy
Build Back Better pilot; recovery that integrates risk reduction; after-action reviews and annual public reporting (Strategy Goal 3; PERP 3.1.1, 4.8, 7.3)
- Sendai: Priority 3, 30(c); Priority 4, 33(j) post-disaster reviews and lessons learned
- ISO 22361: 5.3.6 Recovery; 5.3.7 Continual improvement
- ACMP: 5.2.7 Measurement and benefit realization; 5.2.8 Sustainability; 5.5.2 Lessons learned
The mapping reflects my own professional opinions. It’s not an endorsement from UNDRR, ISO, or ACMP.
A plan that thinks in scales
The PERP’s graduated approach already describes change at every scale, from a single household to the federal government.
The plan explains that response begins with “individuals, families and organizations,” moves to the community, and escalates to the province and then the federal government as more coordination is needed. There are six scales of change, from a single team to a whole society. Ontario’s system touches all six:
Team or unit
- Where it lives in Ontario’s system: PEOC sections, ministry action groups, municipal emergency control groups
- What successful change looks like: Each team knows its IMS role and has rehearsed it
Single organization
- Where it lives in Ontario’s system: Each ministry, municipality and First Nation with its own emergency plan
- What successful change looks like: Plans are exercised regularly and updated after each review
Enterprise
- Where it lives in Ontario’s system: The whole Ontario Public Service, coordinated through the provincial emergency response organization
- What successful change looks like: Every ministry connects to the PEOC through one common system
Multi-organization
- Where it lives in Ontario’s system: Municipalities, First Nations, Ontario Corps partners, NGOs and critical infrastructure operators
- What successful change looks like: Partners share information and resources before they are asked
Provincial
- Where it lives in Ontario’s system: The strategy, the PERP, the Cabinet Committee and the PEOC
- What successful change looks like: One window, one picture of risk, one set of response priorities
National or societal
- Where it lives in Ontario’s system: Public Safety Canada, the National Emergency Response System, mutual aid with other provinces and states, and every Ontario household
- What successful change looks like: Ontarians are personally prepared, and Ontario plugs seamlessly into national response
The value of this view is practical. A change that works inside one ministry relies on familiar tools: a sponsor, a plan, training. A change that must hold across over 440 municipalities and over 130 First Nations communities relies on trust, shared language and partnership. Ontario’s strategy already invests in both, which is why its approach scales.
The next horizon: change leadership for a modernized system
Ontario’s next phase is, at its heart, a people-centred change, and the province’s own commitments show it already sees it that way.
The 2025 annual report sets out three priorities for the road ahead: implementing the Emergency Management Modernization Act, 2025 with partners, advancing the new Emergency Preparedness and Response Headquarters, and expanding Ontario Corps. Each is a strong example of where structured change leadership can increase the return on investments Ontario has already made.
- Implementing the Modernization Act with partners. New flexibility and clearer processes will reach hundreds of municipalities, ministries and partners at once. Change Management tools for assessing readiness, capacity and change saturation fit naturally with Ontario’s stated goal of reducing administrative burden for emergency management partners.
- Growing Ontario Corps. A volunteer network succeeds when people stay engaged between emergencies. Change Management sustainability and reinforcement practices, and ISO 22361’s attention to responder well-being, sit comfortably beside the PERP’s first response priority: protecting the physical and mental health of responders.
- Moving into a new headquarters. A new command centre is also a new way of working for the people inside it. Treating the move as an organizational transition, with sponsors, communication and training planned from the start, protects readiness throughout.
- From response to recovery. The PERP already provides for the PEOC to hand recovery coordination to another organization once multi-ministry coordination is no longer needed. Change Management guidance on transfer of ownership offers ready principles for making each of those handovers seamless.
Ontario’s annual reports already count what matters on the supply side: exercises held, courses delivered, volunteers registered. A natural next layer, consistent with ACMP’s benefit realization strategy, would sit beside them: measures of adoption, such as the share of households with an emergency plan or the speed at which exercise lessons become updated procedures. That would let Ontario show not only what it has delivered, but how preparedness is taking root.
Ontario as a model for Canada and its allies
Ontario’s approach is already being cited as a model beyond its borders, and the national conversation on resilience gives it a timely platform.
In September 2026, the NATO Association of Canada published its Policy Paper on Canada’s National Resilience, assessing how Canada can meet NATO’s seven baseline requirements for national resilience, from assured continuity of government to the ability to deal with mass casualties and disruptive health crises. Its chapter on disaster preparedness features Ontario Corps among four provincial models, describing it as a model of “networked mobilization” that coordinates public servants, skilled volunteers and established organizations, and observes that Ontario shows how dispersed capacity can become deployable.
Three features make Ontario’s approach especially transferable:
- Public accountability by design. Ontario was the first jurisdiction in Canada to commit to annual, public reporting on emergency management progress, and it has now published reports for 2023, 2024 and 2025. The Sendai Framework’s guiding principle that disaster risk reduction requires a clear articulation of responsibilities and “accountability and follow-up” (19(e)) is built into Ontario’s operating rhythm.
- A scalable surge model. Ontario Corps shows how a province can mobilize capacity that already exists in civil society, a direct contribution to the civil preparedness that NATO’s baseline requirements depend on.
- Partnership across jurisdictions. In the 2025 wildland fire season, Ontario hosted 2,307 evacuees from Manitoba and exported more firefighting resources through mutual aid than it imported. Resilience that crosses borders is national resilience in practice.
Sendai also encourages parliamentarians to support disaster risk reduction “by developing new or amending relevant legislation and setting budget allocations.” With the Modernization Act and dedicated funding, including $15 million over two years for Ontario Corps partners, Ontario has done both.
Conclusion
Ontario’s emergency management system stands on the same foundations as the world’s leading frameworks, and it got there through practice.
The Sendai Framework asks for shared responsibility and all-of-society partnership; Ontario’s PERP writes it into its first pages. ISO 22361 asks for principled governance, clear structure and continual learning; Ontario’s IMS, PEOC and after-action process deliver them. The ACMP Standard asks that change be planned, adopted and sustained by people; Ontario’s promise of a province that is practiced as well as prepared puts people at the center.
As Ontario implements its modernized legislation and grows Ontario Corps, it has an opportunity to show the rest of Canada, and its allies, what a resilient province looks like when strategy, standards and change leadership move together.
Dr. Alan Bostakian, MCMP, FIoL, is a change leadership and crisis management expert.
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