If zombies do eventually strike in Quebec, the province’s public security department wants to be ready.
Participants at an annual symposium on civil security next week will be discussing how to handle a zombie attack in the province, among other topics.
The zombies, of course, are hypothetical.
But a ministry spokesman assures the zombie exercise has a serious purpose: the living dead-themed drill is meant to illustrate a real-life catastrophic event.
The idea behind the exercise is that if you’re ready for zombies, then you’re probably ready for any other disaster that may strike.
Hypothetical zombie attacks have been used in exercises on emergency preparedness in the United States.
Last May, British Columbia conducted a similar exercise, offering tips on how to prepare for and fend off a fake zombie apocalypse.
The B.C. government said at the time that it hoped the exercise would generate awareness of social media tools that could help the public in real emergencies.
Yes, it is your tax dollars at work, and for a good cause.
While it seems silly the point of the exercise WAS partly to call attention to emergency information services. Also “wargaming” situations like this serve the same purpose as the US military drawing up plans for alien invasions, it encourages lateral thinking when encountering out of context problems.
Just think, this “silly” zombie outbreak has applications in something like a massive deadly disease outbreak coupled with a breakdown of social order, while neatly avoiding the hard moral quandaries that would be faced in something like shooting an infected person trying to forcibly cross a quarantine line.
“The idea behind the exercise is that if you’re ready for zombies, then you’re probably ready for any other disaster that may strike”
Maybe we should prepare for reality and not fiction!
Is this for real? We are still far from Fool’s Day.
Your tax dollars at work…