Burnaby is not getting the service it’s paying for from the Lower Mainland’s 911 dispatching service, according to the city’s public safety director.
E-Comm is a multi-municipality agency that coordinates 911 service for police, fire and ambulance across the Lower Mainland and provides call taking services for participating municipalities, including Burnaby.
But public safety director Dave Critchley told the public safety committee last week that the city is revisiting its relationship with the organization.
“We currently have a contract with E-Comm, and they’re not meeting the expectations and requirements of that contract, and we’re exploring all options,” Critchley said.
Committee member Heymann Yip had told the committee he spent two hours on hold during a call to the Burnaby RCMP’s non-emergency line in June and another hour and 45 minutes during a call in August while trying to report suspicious activity in the community.
Critchley called those waits “completely unacceptable.”
Burnaby Board of Trade representative Cory Redekop, meanwhile, said the RCMP’s non-emergency line is the “number 1 concern” the board is hearing about from its members.
“There’s obviously the health and safety concerns of not getting through,” Redekop said, “but I’m even more concerned around the negative feedback loop we might be seeing here, where we’re not reporting the crimes, so we’re seeing the numbers going down – and how can we possibly assess where resources need to go if people aren’t able to report?”
Both Critchley and acting Burnaby RCMP head Supt. Graham de la Gorgendiere agreed that people hanging up and not reporting crimes is a serious problem.
“Not only are (police) not able to assist somebody who’s in need of their service, but also we’re being essentially robbed of the ability to understand the true crime that’s occurring in our community,” Critchley said.
He said the E-Comm problems are being taken up at “the highest level” and that Mayor Mike Hurley and members of council had expressed their concerns to the CEO of E-Comm during a workshop the city had organized.
“They (E-Comm) have been tasked with providing us with a response and some additional information to help us understand the service delivery they’re going to be able to provide and what actions they’re taking to stop the further deterioration of the service,” Critchley said. “At this point what we’re waiting for is for E-Comm to respond to us.”
In his report to the committee, fire Chief Chris Bowcock noted E-Comm’s network was “overwhelmed” during the deadly heat events in the summer.
He said there is “strong evidence to suggest a growing need for the City of Burnaby to prepare to be self-reliant, to the greatest extent possible, with regard to emergency call taking, dispatching, medical and fire response.”
E-Comm put out a news release last week saying staffing levels at BC Emergency Health Services are to blame.
E-Comm call takers have to wait on the line with 911 callers until they can be connected to the requested emergency service, the release explained, and for the past several months there have been “continued and consistent delays” when trying to transfer calls for ambulance to BCEHS.
As for long wait times on police non-emergency lines, an earlier E-Comm news release said its call takers have been prioritizing a “record-breaking number of 911 calls from people in life or death situations.”
The release noted a number of major incidents across the province, including gang shootings, the opioid crisis and the heat dome.
Follow Cornelia Naylor on Twitter @CorNaylor
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