About the Emergency Management Program

Under the emergency management program, an emergency is: 

• A situation or an impending situation that constitutes a danger of major proportions that could result in serious harm to persons or substantial property damage and that is caused by the forces of nature, a disease or other health risk, an accident or an act, whether intentional or otherwise;
• a situation deemed an emergency by the university president; or
• a situation declared an emergency by the federal, provincial or municipal government.

The emergency management program is led by Community Safety and Security. 

However, all members of the TMU community have a role to play in preparing for and responding to an emergency on campus. We encourage you to review information for students, faculty, staff, leaders and communicators. 

The development of TMU’s emergency management program included: 

• The creation of an Emergency Management Working Group with representation from across the university was gathered to advise, consult on and give strategic direction to the materials.
• Environmental scans on sector policies, plans, procedures, emergency management approaches and best practices were completed.
• Assessments of historical barriers and gaps in emergency management at TMU were completed. This resulted in the identification of five themes unique to TMU's emergency management environment.
• Consultations took place with key departments and stakeholders on campus most likely to be involved in emergency response, as well as with student, faculty and staff unions, and the university’s Joint Health and Safety Committee. 

Finally, as part of the implementation for university leadership responsible for preparing for and responding in the event of an emergency, the university conducted tabletop exercises to assess the material’s success and identify possible gaps. 

The standard four pillars of effective and comprehensive emergency management are: 

1. Prevention (and mitigation)
   Mitigating future incidents and/or minimizing their impact to TMU
2. Preparedness
   Preparing to respond to and recover from various incidents at TMU
3. Response
   Control, contain and minimize the impacts of the incident and resolve the emergency
4. Recovery
   Minimize disruption and recovery time and restore TMU to pre-emergency level

TMU’s emergency management program sets expectations for each pillar of emergency management. 

The following five themes were used to develop TMU’s Emergency Management Program:

1. People
   • Ensuring appropriate stakeholders are involved
   • Defining roles and responsibilities
2. Incident management
   • Ensuring the ability to manage a wide spectrum of incidents
   • Policies and standard operating procedures
   • Emergency Management Plan (EM Plan)
3. Communications and coordination
   • Ensuring a collaborative and coordinated approach
   • Resources and tools to support 
   • Strategic communications
4. Training and development
   • Stakeholder training and development 
   • Community education and awareness
5. EDI and accessibility
   • Grounded in human rights
   • Addressing systemic barriers to emergency management at TMU 
   • Designing accessible processes, plans and procedures

At Toronto Metropolitan University, we recognize that people are experts in their own experiences and that these experiences inform what people identify as an emergency, how they respond, and what they expect and need during recovery. 

For this reason, the principles of equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility are embedded into the emergency management plan, and we recognize that there are systemic barriers to how people engage with the services associated with emergency response (e.g. police, fire, security, social services, health professionals). 

We are committed to incorporating ongoing feedback to improve and enhance the emergency management program, which is designed to support the safety and well-being of all community members during an emergency and afterward.