The regional fire dispatch centre needs an emergency increase to its operations funding for necessary upgrades to make sure it can continue providing bilingual service when people call to report a fire.
Hawkesbury Fire Chief Brian Wilson made two separate presentations to the eight mayors sitting on the United Counties of Prescott and Russell council (UCPR), asking them to approve almost a half-million-dollar increase to the operating budget for the regional fire dispatch centre. Without it, he told council, Prescott-Russell may end up losing its bilingual dispatch service for fire emergency calls.
“It’s a bit of an ask, » said Wilson, during his original presentation during the October 22 regular session of UCPR council. « We’re at a bit of a crossroads in terms of operating the dispatch centre with the number of changes that are coming up. We’re at a point where we need to make a decision in terms of how we’re going to continue to provide fire dispatch services across Prescott-Russell. »
The UCPR and the Town of Hawkesbury have an agreement where the town’s municipal fire department’s own dispatch centre also handles fire dispatch calls for Hawkesbury and six other municipalities in Prescott-Russell. The City of Clarence-Rockland has an agreement with the City of Ottawa for fire dispatch service but that agreement may not continue in the future.
Right now, Wilson told UCPR council, Prescott and Russell is unique in being the only official bilingual fire dispatch service in Ontario. Most fire dispatch centres in the province are English-speaking. A few of them have guidelines that state fluency in another language like French or Spanish is an asset for any new hires but that is not a mandatory requirement.
The problem, Chief Wilson said, is that all of Ontario’s fire dispatch centres are now switching over to the NG911 (new government) system for call services. That system is digitally-based and demands computer upgrades for all dispatch centres to deal with the calls in and out for fire dispatch. The demand for upgrading to NG911 has been in place for several years and the deadline to have all upgrades in place for all dispatch centres is early next year.
The Hawkesbury dispatch centre has been on the copper-based telephone setup until now because of the projected cost to implement the NG911 upgrades. When he became Hawkesbury’s new fire chief earlier this year, Chief Wilson began an intensive review of the dispatch centre setup, the NG911 upgrade requirement, and an evaluation of what it would mean for fire dispatch service for Hawkesbury and the rest of Prescott and Russell if the change to NG911 was delayed. Following the October 22 session, Wilson prepared a detailed supplementary report on the Hawkesbury dispatch centre for UCPR council during its October 29 preliminary budget review session.
He told UCPR council during both presentations that the future of Prescott and Russell’s bilingual fire dispatch service could be jeopardized if the upgrade to the NG911 system was delayed. Not having NG911 in place by the provincial operations deadline would mean having to close down the local dispatch centre and contracting with another regional dispatch service to field fire calls for the Prescott and Russell area.
Chief Wilson noted that finding a dispatch centre that could provide bilingual service to meet the needs of Prescott-Russell’s French and English population might not be possible. He also said it could create serious problems with efficient and effective responses to fire emergency calls, especially if a call comes from a child who is taught to call 911 in an emergency.
« When a panic situation occurs, a child goes to their original language, » he said, adding that the delay to find an interpreter could be disastrous. « We owe them—I owe them—a standard duty of care to have a bilingual dispatch. That is key. »
« This is something where I think we really have no choice, » said Mayor Mario Zanth of Clarence-Rockland.
Mayor Mike Tarnowski of Russell Township expressed concern that UCPR council is faced with a major budget decision like this at a late date. He asked for revision of the resolution to approve the increase to the dispatch centre’s budget to include a demand for a detailed review of the existing agreement between the UCPR and the Town of Hawkesbury for fire dispatch service, including an evaluation of the present setup and possible alternatives for the future.
The revised resolution was approved for a $578,402 increase in the fire dispatch centre budget to cover the costs for equipment upgrades and hiring and training of more staff to meet demands for the NG911 system for fire dispatch.