South Island mayors ask province to call off millions in upcoming 9-1-1 dispatch costs

Oliver Grüter-Andrew, President & CEO at E-Comm’s South Island 9-1-1/Police Dispatch Centre opening in 2019

The South Island will soon be paying nearly $5 million more to send RCMP officers to emergency calls this year. That’s “untenable and unacceptable,” 10 of the region's mayors said in a joint letter to the province on Wednesday.

The mayors are calling on Garry Begg, minister of public safety and solicitor general, to halt BC's plans to download 9-1-1 dispatch costs to their level. The mayors said they are strongly opposed to changes to property taxes in the region that could go up anywhere from 2.6% to 6%—a tough sell to residents in municipalities that have already tallied noticeable recent tax increases.

Under the Provincial Municipal Police Unit Agreements and the Provincial Policing Service Agreement, the provision of  9-1-1 services in BC is the responsibility of local governments.  However, a five-year long dispute with the province about if and when full fiscal responsibility for the services might land in the mayors’ laps was reignited last week.

Prior to last Tuesday’s announcement by the province (indicating the cost increase would indeed apply as of April 1), the mayors say that who was paying what, and for how long, remained ambiguous. The mayors say comments made by then minister Mike Farnworth to the Union of BC Municipalities conference last year suggested that the changes were not imminent.

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An email sent yesterday from the ministry to Capital Daily says “the province is not downloading 9-1-1 costs” to municipalities serviced by the RCMP, citing the fact that such services are already a municipal responsibility.  The mayors disagree.

The current dispute about who would pay for what began in 2019, when call-taking and dispatch services were transferred from the RCMP to E-Comm. Established in 1997 under the provincial Emergency Communications Corporations Act, E-Comm is owned by municipalities and member public safety agencies such as police boards and fire departments.

In 2020, area municipalities including Colwood, Ladysmith, Langford, North Cowichan, North Saanich, Sidney, Sooke, Metchosin, and View Royal  were informed of the pending download of 100 per cent of the costs for RCMP E-Comm 9-1-1 dispatch calls to their municipal budgets.

The province has historically disallowed imposing a universal levy on individual cell phones as is done in other provinces. This leaves municipalities with two main options: raising property taxes and collecting a levy from land lines—a pool that dwindles every year due to customers ditching home phones for cellphones.

The limitations leave municipalities arguing that they’ve been hamstrung by the province with no other choice but to assume property tax increases to pay for costs related to E-Comm’s services. They say the province’s lack of consultation on the matter has led to the deadlock.

Colwood Mayor Doug Kobayashi told Capital Daily last week that he believes “all the mayors (new and longer-tenured) were blindsided by the financial implications due to lack of consultation during the transition to E-Comm.”

Those financial implications: an estimated $4.9 million for April to December 2025, increasing further in 2026.

Costs breakdown for some impacted municipalities

Sooke: $255K for 2025 and up to $340K with a 2.07% tax increase for 2026.

Sidney: $331.5K in 2025 and up to $460K with a 3% tax increase in 2026.

Colwood: $494K in 2025 and up to $658K with a 2.7% tax increase in 2026.

Langford: $1.5M in 2025 up to $2.5M with a 2.7% tax increase in 2026.

View Royal: a tax increase of 2%

Over the next five years, these added costs are all subject to consumer price index increases.

According to a statement emailed to Capital Daily from the ministry on Wednesday, South Island Communities were notified that they would eventually be responsible for 100% of the costs for dispatch calls in 2020.  In 2022, the ministry told South Island municipalities it would provide multi-year transitional funding to fully fund their police dispatch services until March 31, 2025, with the caveat they would take over funding of police dispatch at that time.

In addition, the ministry says the province has met with representatives from the South Island several times on this matter and reiterated this commitment.

What happens when you call 9-1-1?

When a caller dials 9-1-1, an E-Comm call taker otherwise known as a “PSAP” (Public Safety Answering Point), answers by asking, “Do you need police, fire, or ambulance?”

When you dial 9-1-1 from a traditional landline, E-Comm's computer system displays the name, phone number, and address associated with the phone that you dialed from. If you dial 9-1-1 from a cellphone, the PSAP will identify your phone number, and the name of your wireless provider and calculate your general location.

E-Comm (the PSAP) then creates an immediate link between people in crisis and local emergency response agencies (police, fire, ambulance). The process typically takes less than 25 seconds.

In 2017, E-Comm signed agreements with police agencies in the Capital Regional District for the formation of a new consolidated South Island 9-1-1/Police Dispatch Centre. Police agencies including Victoria, Central Saanich, Saanich, Oak Bay police departments, and the Westshore RCMP transitioned their emergency call-taking and dispatch operations there in February 2019.

Despite the transitional warning lights of the three years, South Island mayors say they are being caught off guard and now ask that the province distribute the new costs more equitably across dispatch jurisdictions.

Their letter also asks that the province provide 100% funding until it finishes its review of whether E-Comm services are falling short; phase in any costs “appropriately;” and pursue a telecommunications levy to offset costs, as is done in other provinces.

Langford mayor Scott Goodmanson wishes the province would either allow for the cellphone tax or continue to support municipalities with the costs.

There are other ways to fund 9-1-1, mayors argue

Tobias said most other provinces in Canada have funded 9-1-1 through a small charge on cell phone calls and a similar fee extracted from landlines. In the case of this latest announcement,  the provincial government has “elected not to use this as a funding mechanism and is forcing municipalities to tax citizens at a time when affordability is the number one concern for all of us,” he said.

Twelve other provinces and territories across Canada already take a CAL levy (tax) from individual customer cellphone bills. For example, TELUS customers in Alberta, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Northwest Territories, Prince Edward Island, Quebec and Saskatchewan are all subject to the tax that pays for Enhanced (E911) services.

In Alberta, under the 911 Emergency Act (2021), a monthly 95-cent levy was applied to cell phone bills to cover the cost of the day-to-day operations and infrastructure for 911 centres in the province. People who own landlines in BC are already taxed for 9-1-1 services at a rate of $1.00 per month. But those analog households are increasingly fewer.

In the past, regional mayors criticized the province’s lack of consultation on the matter. Today, it’s not so much the need for a new policy that has them concerned, but rising municipal costs and the prospect of implementing additional taxes after tax hikes were announced in many of their jurisdictions last year.

Langford voted last year to raise property taxes dramatically by 15.6% and recently signed on to a Westhills Y purchase that will add another 1.5%.

“That’s a two-million-dollar hit coming to us over one year and we have no say in the cost unless we don’t want to be part of 9-1-1,” said Goodmanson when he spoke with ChekNews on Tuesday.

Local mayors have been fighting the cost download for several years

The provincial transfer of these rising costs was initially meant to take effect on April 1, 2022.

In their Dec. 17 2021 letter to Mike Farnworth, (BC's minister of public safety and solicitor general at the time), the mayors argued they needed more time beyond the 3-year phase-in to absorb the extra costs, citing the “major financial burden” that the transfer would mean to their municipalities in the wake of the costly COVID-19 pandemic. They weren’t alone.

In 2022, Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) president Jen Ford wrote a letter to Farnworth requesting the province assume greater responsibility for emergency communications in BC. The letter also includes the request that the province implement a 9-1-1 call answer levy on cellular devices to address “current and future financial challenges” of 9-1-1 service delivery.

Ford goes on to say “The development of a funding mechanism will help BC move towards a sustainable service delivery model where new costs are not transferred to local taxpayers.”

In recognition of the financial impact of COVID-19 on municipalities, the province agreed to provide 100% transition funding to cover their dispatch costs through to March 31, 2025.

In his Oct 22 letter to North Cowichan mayor Rob Douglas, Deputy Solicitor General Douglas Scott said “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.”

That three-year grace period is now ending.

Cost of emergency services has historically been with the province

The BC ambulance service was only established in the province in 1974. In 1909 an agreement was made between the single-vehicle ambulance service in Vancouver and the police. It indicated that a call for emergency transport in the motorized vehicle could be made through the police free of charge—however, non-emergency calls and transport could be made for a horse-drawn cart for a fee. BC Emergency Health Services does not have a record of what those fees were.

Horse drawn ambulance serving Vancouver General Hospital circa 1909  Credit: BC Emergency Health Services archives

The history of 9-1-1 call costs for municipalities in BC can be traced back to the late 1980s when the province began adopting the 9-1-1 emergency telephone system to improve public safety and enhance emergency response times.

The initial setup and maintenance of the 9-1-1 system in BC involved significant infrastructure investments, which led to discussions about how to fund it sustainably.

In 1989, BC municipalities began using a cost-sharing model for the operation of 911 services, with local governments contributing to the system's funding through a per-household levy or fee. This funding arrangement was designed to ensure that municipalities could access and maintain the service without bearing the full financial burden on their own.

In the early 2000s, the costs associated with 911 services began to rise as the technology systems supporting them advanced and their infrastructure became more complex. The introduction of wireless 9-1-1 services in that first decade  allowed for location-based emergency call tracking but added to both technical and operational costs.

Municipalities in BC faced pressure to balance these increasing expenses with the need to maintain other critical public services. A 2013 UBCM background report on the 9-1-1 levy says that, during this period, the provincial government introduced a uniform 911 service fee for cellular phone users, intended to help cover the cost of wireless 911 services. This move helped alleviate some of the financial pressures on municipalities. But local governments continued to advocate for more stable, long-term funding solutions to keep up with the growing demands of emergency communication systems.

In its attempt to fund local 9-1-1 service as customers were transitioning from landlines to mobile phones, Nanaimo introduced a bylaw (2010) requiring wireless providers to either sign agreements to collect a 9-1-1 levy from their customers or pay a $30 fee for every local 9-1-1 call placed on their networks. The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA), Telus, Rogers and Bell Mobility went to court to challenge the bylaw, arguing that the $30 fee amounted to an unauthorized tax for telcos that don't enter into levy agreements.

In his decision, presiding judge William Ehrcke found “the single-call fee is a tax that the city does not have the power to impose.” The judgment also noted wireless companies were willing to sign 9-1-1 levy agreements if such agreements were legislated by the provincial government, as they are in 12other provinces, including New Brunswick, Alberta and Ontario.

In 2021, the cost split in all dispatch jurisdictions in BC was 70:30—province 70%, feds 30% It is this split that is set to expire next year expressly in the South Vancouver Island Dispatch regions. The mayors would like the province to cover 100% of related 9-1-1 service costs until the Deputy Attorney General’s review of E-Comm is complete.

In the past few years, advancements in communications technology and infrastructure has significantly increased the costs of emergency response.

The CRTC directed all telecommunications providers to update their networks for NG9-1-1 voice services as of March 2022.

“Next Generation” or “NG911” emergency communications systems operate on an Internet Protocol (IP) platform that enables interconnection between a range of public and private wireless and internet-based networks. NG911 functions include text messaging, integrated photo/video, and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) that assist in conveying critical location details of an emergency directly to a 9-1-1 PSAP and first responders.

The complex challenge of funding emergency call infrastructure

Langford mayor Scott Goodmanson’s suggestion to implement a CAL levy on cell phones may run into challenges based on the Nanaimo judicial precedent. Goodman told ChekNews he was told by the province that  taxing individual cell phone users was too complicated.

Under the current model, which has been in place since Capital Region Emergency Services Telecommunications (CREST) was formed in 2001, a levy from telephone landlines covered the cost of the service. According to Stats Canada only about 38% of households in BC had a landline as of 2021.

With the number of landlines ever decreasing, property tax hikes are the only option left to the municipalities. However, they could push back and ask the province to consider:

• implementing a universal cellphone tax
• a subsidized pro rata subsidy for smaller communities based on the number of 9-1-1 calls placed

The consistent reduction in the number of landlines in homes in recent years has resulted in a funding gap the CRD has been subsidizing, particularly when it comes to emergency communications infrastructure provided by CREST.

Where E-Comm provides the response staff, CREST is the organization that provides and maintains emergency communications equipment and infrastructure for more than 50 first responder and public service agencies through the CRD, including fire and police departments and ambulance services.

The region’s municipalities contribute a share of these costs based on their size, population, use of the system and the number of emergency radios on the system. Through its agreement with CREST the CRD funded roughly $1.7M of the organization’s $8M budget in 2024.

The CRD’s 2024 operating expenses show outflows of $2.5M for 9-1-1, CREST Southern Gulf Islands $182K, CREST Juan De Fuca $144K and CREST Salt Spring Island $145K.

E-Comm also being scrutinized over its effectiveness

Behind the scenes, the province has been conducting its own review in response to concerns raised by the Union of BC Municipalities, the BC Association of Chiefs of Police, municipal police boards, and emergency service providers about E-Comm’s lack of operational and financial transparency and performance, and escalating costs from unsustainable levy increases.

In a Dec. 2024 press release, new public safety minister Gary Begg announced “We are launching an independent review to understand the reasons behind ongoing cost increases.” The minister's report will include a review of E-Comms’s financial records, E-Comm’s financial forecasting, board management and governance. It will also include recommendations that will inform changes that may be needed to ensure sustainable funding and operations for BC’s 9-1-1 and dispatch service delivery.

In its Wednesday email the ministry states, “as the review is underway, communities will continue to be responsible for paying for the E-Comm Services they receive on call taking and dispatch services.” The municipalities are questioning why they should take on 100% of costs while the provincial review of the services they're gettin remains in process.

In 2023, the Fraser Valley Current reported that, in some areas of the province, the agency was struggling to respond to calls for help and to report crimes in a timely way due to staffing shortages. It’s unclear why the service bill from the province has been delivered to the nine municipalities before the minister’s review is completed.

Tobias told The Westshore  he also has “grave concerns over service quality and governance over the E-Comm 911 service and governance is a dumpster fire for responsible oversight for new [service] members such as View Royal. We have no say in whatever budget or service comes next and do not even have a full budget outlook for this service for the next year.”

“The province can and must do better.” Tobias said. He’d like to see the province continue to fund the service until the review is sorted out and infrastructure is in place to levy the charges on cell phone calls. “Affordability cannot be downloaded,” he said.

With several budgeting processes already at the public input stage, municipalities such as Langford and View Royal are under pressure to get their final plans in front of residents as soon as possible.

The ministry says it will meet with South Island mayors next Tuesday to continue discussions and the concerns outlined in their joint letter.