Maple Ridge city council is hitting local taxpayers with costs that should be born by the province, say critics, as the city hires new firefighters to respond to medical calls.
The City of Maple Ridge is hiring 16 more firefighters as part of its 2024 budget, which carries a 6.5 per cent property tax increase. Of these, 10 will be deployed in teams of two, over shifts, to respond to medical emergencies.
Former city councillor Chelsa Meadus is critical of this decision, saying the city needs more paramedics hired by BC Emergency Health Services. They are trained to a higher standard in emergency paramedicine, and are able to transport patients to hospital – where firefighters can’t.
Meadus said the opioid epidemic and overdoses due to the toxic drug supply has dramatically increased medical calls, but having firefighters as the main response is “blurring the lines” between provincial and local government responsibilities.
“The burden of that service should not be on local taxpayers,” asserted Meadus. “This is a huge, huge issue, and the public should be screaming at the top of their lungs.”
A former mayor has also launched a salvo at the city’s latest budget on his namesake webpage mikemorden.com, under the headline “Council hits taxpayers hard second year in a row.”
“If MR Fire is now formalizing a drug overdose response service, and given that 50 per cent of fire department call volumes are medical, predominantly illicit drug overdose, can local taxpayers expect that the province pays accordingly given the woefully inadequate and under supported provincial ambulance service, or should local taxpayers just accept another download onto property taxes?” Mike Morden asks.
Morden was the mayor from 2018-2022, and Meadus was part of his slate that was defeated by Mayor Dan Ruimy and his Better Maple Ridge slate in the October 2022 election.
During the budget process, interim fire chief Dave Samson told council his department responded to a record number of emergency calls last year, more than 6,500, which was up 14 per cent. About half are medical calls.
He outlined a plan for a two-person medic unit with an electric vehicle “to take that pressure off the base core fire operations for the city.”
Korleen Carreras asked if the city could advocate for more BCEHS paramedics, and Samson responded “I don’t believe the numbers are where they should be.”
Mayor Dan Ruimy likes with Samson’s plan to have two firefighters in a smaller vehicle respond to medical emergencies, rather than sending a fire truck with a four-person crew.
Fire trucks will remain ready, with a four-person crew, to respond to fires or other emergency calls.
“It’s about building capacity and bandwidth to deal with any kind of emergency,” said Ruimy. “We need the flexibility to be able to do more.”
He said the city is currently “way under our quota of firefighters,” as identified in the 2023 Fire Services Strategic Plan.
A consultant told the city last summer it should invest in a new fire hall and hire 25 additional career firefighters over the next three years.
READ ALSO: Consultant recommends Maple Ridge hire 25 more firefighters, build new hall
This was illustrated by a fire in Pitt Meadows a month ago that Maple Ridge assisted with.
“But when they got there, we ended up having a fire here, and we had to put out a call for paid-on-calls (firefighters), and it was a struggle to try to get a full team in,” Ruimy said.
“With a city of 100,000, we can’t be playing that game, we need to have the resources to be able to go out there and protect not only our citizens, but our infrastructure,” the mayor added.
He didn’t agree that the city is letting the province off the hook.
“The city has a responsibility to ensure we have the bandwidth to respond to any emergency that comes our way, and if it means having a couple of firefighters that are trained to respond to medical emergencies, that’s a good thing,” said Ruimy.
“I need to make sure that our fire and rescue services are well-stocked and ready to go.”