There will be no good news for North Cowichan, as well as nine other communities in south Vancouver Island including Duncan and Ladysmith, in regards to taking on the costs of the E-comm 911 service that are planned to be downloaded to the municipalities in 2025.
In a letter to North Cowichan Mayor Rob Douglas, Douglas S. Scott, the province’s Deputy Solicitor General, said the 10 municipalities will be responsible for taking over 100 per cent of the costs of the E-comm 911 service as of April 1, 2025, as planned.
“It is a condition of the transition funding [from the province for the service] that respective municipalities and E-Comm make every effort to negotiate and sign agreements for the provision of dispatch services by April 1, 2025,” Scott said in the letter to Douglas on behalf of Mike Farnworth, minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General.
E-Comm 911 is a multi-municipality agency that provides emergency communications operations for British Columbia.
Currently, funding for the service is split between the province (70 per cent) and the federal government (30 per cent), but the responsibility for costs associated with police dispatch transitioned to the South Island municipalities in 2019 as a result of a change in service provider from the RCMP to E-Comm.
Meanwhile, the province and federal governments intend to continue funding for the dispatch service in all other areas across B.C.
In recognition of municipalities’ concerns about the impact of additional costs associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, the province agreed to continue to provide 100 per cent of the 10 municipalities’ dispatch costs through to March 31, 2025.
In North Cowichan, the downloading of the costs means the municipality will have to pay $800,000 per year for the service, beginning in 2025, for the first time, on top of the other burgeoning policing bills for which it is responsible.
The mayors of North Cowichan, Duncan and Ladysmith met with Farnworth at the Union of B.C. Municipalities meeting in September and requested that the E-comm 911 costs be deferred for at least one more year while further efforts are made to ensure the equal distribution of these costs for all municipalities across B.C. that are currently not paying for the service.
They were told at the time that there would be some good news coming soon on the issue, but nothing had been announced since then.
Douglas sent Farnworth a letter in October pointing out that North Cowichan is already facing increased costs based on a 6.5 per cent contractual raise for its RCMP officers, debt servicing of the region’s newly constructed $48-million RCMP detachment, future unknown costs associated with RCMP body cameras, and potential increased costs of up to $1 million per year for Island Major Crimes Unit service improvements, and now it is also expected to add on the costs of the E-comm 911 service.
Scott replied in his letter to Douglas that the Solicitor General’s office will bring this issue forward to the next minister responsible after the formation of the new NDP cabinet is complete.
“I will note that if the next government continues with a review of E-Comm, it will take several months and will not likely provide recommendations prior to April 1, 2025,” he said.
“As such, we encourage you to continue negotiations with E-Comm, and to provide any updates on the progress of these negotiations to myself or Megan Harris, assistant deputy minister of Corporate Strategic Initiatives.”
