If your house is on fire, Surrey is where your panicked call will go, if you live in one of five Greater Victoria municipalities. Yes, we have dispatch centres in Greater Victoria, but they are apparently too expensive.
Colwood, Esquimalt, North Saanich, Sidney and View Royal had been paying Saanich to handle their fire calls, but Saanich decided it wasn’t charging enough, upped its rates and as a result is about to lose its customers to Surrey, which can offer the service more cheaply.
That will leave Oak Bay and Central Saanich sticking with Saanich, and Oak Bay might jump in a year. Victoria, which has its own fire dispatch, was going to join Saanich, but that’s now uncertain. Fire chiefs say there is no safety issue in going to Surrey.
Of course, if you live in Juan de Fuca, Salt Spring Island or Southern Gulf Island electoral areas or Highlands, Langford, Metchosin or Sooke, your calls will still go to CRD Fire Dispatch based in Langford. It also couldn’t beat Surrey’s price.
And if you thought your call would be handled by the new $16-million CRD 911 call centre being built in Saanich, you’d be wrong because it just handles police calls. It could be five years before it will add fire calls.
It’s hard to fault the five municipalities for saving their taxpayers $1.5 million over five years, but it’s also hard to fault those taxpayers for wondering why they have to go off the Island to do it.
