Ten South Vancouver Island communities were unsuccessful in their attempt to have the province continue funding 911 dispatch costs on their behalf.
North Cowichan Mayor Rob Douglas says the municipality, along with Duncan, Ladysmith, Colwood, Langford, Metchosin, North Saanich, Sidney, Sooke, and View Royal will have to fund E-Comm for 911 emergency call services as of next Tuesday.
The shared cost from April to December is $4.9 million, and the municipalities will have to pay the costs for a full year in 2026.
“We made a request to the Minister of Public Safety,” Douglas says, “who is responsible for this policy shift, and met with the minister subsequent to that, unfortunately our efforts weren’t successful and we’re going to have to cover those costs starting in this calendar year.”
Douglas says they realize the province is “in a tough fiscal spot but so are our taxpayers,” and they had hoped for a positive resolution.
Douglas, Duncan mayor Michelle Staples, and the eight other south island mayors launched a final effort in January for more consultations and transitional funding while an independent review of E-Comm and 911 service is underway.
They also wanted funding inequity between South Island municipalities and other jurisdictions eliminated, and a telecommunications levy to offset 9-1-1 costs.
The impact will hit this year’s budget in North Cowichan and Mayor Douglas says they sought to reduce the property tax increase, now expected to be 7.8 per cent, as much as possible.
“We did remove a number of items, we managed to get the increase down below eight per cent, it had been projected at much higher than that initially, and managed to find a way to fund some of the cost pressures we’re facing through reserve funds and other funding sources rather than relying on property taxes.”
However, Douglas says the municipality is not expanding any new services and have created a status quo budget to maintain current service levels.
An RCMP operational communication centre was closed and the dispatch service was moved to E-Comm 911 in 2019.
In their letter to the province in January, the mayors stated, “this transition occurred without consultation, transparency, or awareness of the financial repercussions for member municipalities.
They said maintaining the original OCC would have been “a viable option if these financial implications had been made clear during the initial transition.”
