Everyone seems to agree it was great to have the Burnaby Fire Department back at the public safety committee this month after a two-year absence – but no one’s quite sure why it stopped coming in the first place.
Committee members who spoke to the NOW last week were unanimous in saying the fire department, which took up 8.8% (or more than $48 million) of the city’s operating budget last year, belonged on the committee.
“I just think it’s really important that fire be part of public safety,” said resident representative Anne Harvey, who joined the committee two months ago.
“Having them on the committee really allows members of the community also to bring their concerns forward and have them heard by folks that are involved in the fire department,” said Aki Ediriweera, who has been attending meetings since January 2018, when he was still a high schooler.
The committee advises city council on public safety matters, according to the city’s website.
Along with collaborating with local police, city departments and external stakeholders to “implement and promote public safety programs and initiatives,” it gives the public a chance to “have input into community safety priorities and the public safety and community services department,” the website says.
Fire Chief Chris Bowcock said the department was “honoured” to be at the March 17 meeting before presenting the fire department’s first report to the committee in more than two years.
His report summed up major incidents the department has dealt with since January and some stats for the 12-month period between February 2020 and February 2021, as well as some updates on the activities of the department’s fire prevention and training divisions in January and February.
“I didn’t want to go all the way back to our last presence here,” Bowcock said during the online meeting. “I just thought it would be too much information.”
Public safety committee chair Coun. James Wang said it was “very good” to see the fire chief back at the meetings.
“I think (the fire department) should be there,” he said. “I think that’s very important to public safety and the committee as well.”
Vice-chair Coun. Dan Johnston concurred.
“I think it’s good,” he said. “I don’t think they should have been taken off in the first place.”
Johnston called the fire department “integral” to community safety and said the committee allows community members to have input.
“The public have ideas that staff that sit at city hall or the fire hall or police department don’t necessarily come to,” he said.
Coun. Joe Keithley, who also sits on the committee, agreed as well.
“It makes sense to have them back on, but I’m not sure why it went off in the first place,” he said.
Harvey and Ediriweera said they also didn’t know why the fire department hasn’t reported to the committee for more than two years.
Wang and Johnston said they thought it had something to do with a shortage of administrative staff after the last fire chief, Joe Robertson, went on leave in April 2019 and then departed in March 2020 after more than 30 years of service without any explanation from the city.
But Wang and Keithley were both at a Jan. 28, 2019 city council meeting when Mayor Mike Hurley presented a report on the city’s committees, commissions and boards, and proposed changes to them.
Hurley said the public safety committee should “focus completely on public safety issues related to policing matters and security,” and, as such, fire services should “report directly to council.”
Hurley later told the NOW he had made the move because three deputy fire chiefs were sharing acting chief duties in Robertson’s absence and he had “tried to relieve them” as much as he could.
All the changes in his report were adopted unanimously without any questions or discussion – and the fire department hasn’t reported to any public meeting since.
Given how important they said it was to have the fire department on the public safety committee, Wang and Keithley were hard-pressed to explain why they hadn’t raised any objections or even asked any questions about the committee changes they had approved.
Keithley said he “can’t change the facts about that.”
And Wang said simply, “I cannot comment.”
The public safety committee chair said there was “no big issue” with the fire department’s two-year absence.
Keithley, meanwhile, said the department’s absence would have been significant “if something major had been missed,” but he didn’t believe anything had.
“People have the chance to have their input now, and that’s really the bottom line,” he said.
Johnston, who wasn’t at the council meeting where the committee changes were approved, suggested another factor that might have played a role in the mayor’s decision to take the fire department off the committee.
“From talking to (late councillor) Paul McDonell, who was on the committee, I think that there was a clear indication that the fire department didn’t want to be active on the committee, which is unfortunate,” Johnston said.
When asked if Hurley’s ties to the fire service (he is a former longtime Burnaby firefighter and union president who got full support from the local firefighters’ union during the 2018 election) might have played a role in the changes to the committee, Johnston said: “I don’t want to go too far down that path, but I think the situation is a little cozier than it should be.”
Unlike Wang and Keithley, Johnston said the fire department’s two-year absence from the committee had been significant and that the priorities of the fire department have “drastically changed” in the last two-and-a-half years.
For more information about the City of Burnaby’s public safety committee, click here.
Follow Cornelia Naylor on Twitter @CorNaylor
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