The new President of the Cortes Island Fire Fighter’s Association (CIFFA) is not opposed to having a shared fire fighting service in the SRD. When he was Deputy Manager of Vancouver, Sadhu Johnston led the charge in creating a shared water fire service for the Lower Mainland.  

“We had very extensive consultations with other municipalities that needed services, that had structures along the shoreline. I personally went to those city halls, met with those fire chiefs and the city managers. We created a steering committee that got to shape the service and then we chose which boats to purchase based on that input. It was a multiple year effort and it was done really collaboratively. I think that’s the really important part.” 

In regard to the current SRD initiative, he said, “Perhaps what’s missing right now is just being able to all be on the same page about what kind of shared services are needed.” 

SJ: “ I really understand the benefit of shared services and sharing resources and the efficiencies that can be gained out of that.  In the Lower Mainland, instead of 5 or 6 or 7 municipalities all having to own and operate their own fireboats and train all their staff to maintain those boats and operate the boats and have marine firefighting certifications and whatnot. It made sense to have a few people that were trained in that.  I really understand the benefits that can be achieved through shared accounting, shared management of training, in terms of tracking who’s been trained, and to what standards. There could really be considerable benefits from more sharing of resources and shared services regionally with our firefighting services.” 

SRD has not renewed CIFFA’s 5 year contract

SJ: “ I joined the board of CIFFA about a month and a half ago. We had  a few other board members join around the same time, and we’ve been spending a lot of time trying to understand where we sit in regards to the SRD.” 

“In particular, the SRD contracts CIFFA’s services for firefighting on Cortes. We typically operate with a five year contract and they have not agreed to renew our five year contract.  We’re currently operating on a month to month contract. The CIFFA board is concerned about the implications of that, and are trying to understand why the SRD isn’t renewing our contract to provide firefighting services on Cortes.”

“I felt that it was important to update the community regarding some of the concerns that we as a board have about what might be motivating the lack of contract renewal.” 

“At this point you’ve reported already on the duelling audits of our operations, but I will say as a relatively new board member, I was quite comforted by our audit that indicated we are in pretty good shape as a volunteer fire department.” 

The two Assessments

CC: The SRD recently hired a consultant to do an assessment of the Cortes Island Fire Department. Shortly after that CIFFA hired another consultant to carry out its own audit. What was going on? 

SJ: “The CIFFA board got wind that there was  an audit conducted of our firefighting services on Cortes. The auditor spent about three hours on the island. So we knew that there was some kind of audit, but we never got to see it. We asked the SRD board for that audit multiple times, weren’t able to see the audit and so of course assumed the worst.”  

“The board decided to commission our own audit. Really that enabled us to ensure, as a board, that we were aware of deficiencies and could address those deficiencies.” 

“Training expectations and the standards are increasing across the province and that requires that volunteers have more training and we’ve had to update our equipment.”

“We received almost $100,000 worth of grants that we’re using to buy all new breathing apparatus that the firefighters use when they’re fighting a fire. We’re making upgrades and we’re upgrading our training, but the desire for an audit was really to be proactive and make sure we were aware of any deficiencies that we had.”

“Subsequently, the SRD did release publicly the results of the audit that they conducted. There were discrepancies, of course.” 

“Our auditor was formerly the Fire Chief in Campbell River for over a decade. He spent many more hours with us than the previous auditor, really going through our papers and actually observing a training and meeting with board members and talking to volunteers and whatnot.”

“So we feel pretty confident with the findings of that report.” 

“There were some things that we needed to do. Recommendations were made. We’ve implemented most of them already, but we’re implementing all of them and have agreed to the audit findings.”

Did the SRD auditor have an agenda?

CC: Were you aware that four months before stepping foot on Cortes, the SRD auditor published a report recommending that the SRD set up a centralized fire service with digitalized records and a Fire Chief in Campbell River? His subsequent report refers to the Cortes Island Fire Department as  ‘obsolete,’ ‘ineffective’ and reinforces the suggestion that the SRD adopt a ‘more focused municipal management of their fire departments.’

SJ: “I  became aware of that after we saw the SRD audit. This is why the board has these suspicions of the changes that  might be underway at the SRD.” 

“The SRD has inferred in conversations and emails that there’s an interest in changing the governance of the fire department and creating a regional fire service with a centralized decision making structure in Campbell River and a Fire Chief, or a Chief Fire Administrator, in Campbell River that would oversee fire operations on Cortes as well as other places.”

“I think there’s a sense that a society like CIFFA overseeing firefighting services is a thing of the past and is no longer an appropriate structure for managing firefighting services in a rural community. Based on those reports that you referred to, you kind of get the sense that it’s an outdated model.”

“I did have a chance to talk to the BC Fire Commissioner just to ask, ‘Is the structure of a society overseeing a volunteer fire department, like this, antiquated or inappropriate in any way?’ I was assured by the Fire Commissioner that it isn’t an inappropriate structure, it isn’t antiquated. There was recently a new society created just like CIFFA. It’s clearly not the norm as cities are growing more sophisticated and Fire Departments transition away from volunteer structures, but it isn’t an unacceptable structure for overseeing firefighting governance  and operations in a rural community like this.”

“As a new board member, I feel confident that we’re in good shape with our operations. There’s  lots to do with a volunteer fire department. It’s all hands on deck, but we feel that we are in strong shape to justify and warrant a contract renewal.” 

“The lack of a long-term contract is making it difficult for us to continue to operate an effective fire department, particularly in the long run.  We have an interim Fire Chief right now who is really providing this service to us out of a sense of commitment to the island and putting his other work on hold. We feel it’s really important to go searching out a new Fire Chief and getting the full-time staffing in place to ensure that we have reliable fire services.”

SRD Not Communicating

“A little bit of our fear is that the SRD is looking to change the governance of the fire department and take over the oversight of the fire department and manage it from Campbell River, rather than the way we currently have it, which is a volunteer board managing it from Cortes.”

“We don’t know for sure if that’s what the SRD’s intentions are.  As a contract provider to them, we really want to meet with them and talk this through to understand what their objectives are and see if we can meet their objectives with our current structure.”

“At this point, we haven’t had the opportunity to sit down and meet with them. We haven’t had the opportunity to send a delegation to the board, despite asking.” 

“We feel it’s really important to understand what their objectives are and to see how we can help fulfill those objectives. We really would welcome some regional shared services, which the SRD could be well suited to provide, but sometimes when you don’t know what the intentions are, you fear the worst.”

“Our concerns may be unfounded, but we felt it was incumbent upon us to let the community know that  there may be changes afoot regarding the governance of firefighting on Cortes.” 

“ I think the important thing is that whatever decisions are made that the public, including the CIFFA board, has the opportunity to look at those options and weigh the pros and cons and elect to join those services. I think it would be a shame if Cortes Island lost our ability to have an on island chief, and on island expertise, that was shaping the investments and the oversight of the firefighting operation.”

“I don’t think the board feels like everything has to stay the same, but ultimately  we really want to be a part of those discussions and we want to be able to inform the community as we are now, if we see areas of concern.”

“We’re not wedded to the way it is, but  we don’t really want decisions to be made behind closed doors without the community being able to know about them and have a say. If governance is going to be taken away from Cortes and the decision making for firefighting service is going to be taken away from Cortes, it would be really nice to know that and to be able to be a part of that dialogue.”

Concerns regarding a centralized fire service

CC: What are the concerns about a centralized fire department based in Campbell River?

SJ: “In order to fully answer that, we would really need to see a specific proposal for what would be done locally versus what would be done in Campbell River.” 

“But having a local Fire Chief that really understands this community, we see as a strength. And having the decision making about the firefighting services being made by Cortes residents with an understanding of the needs of our island, we see as a benefit.”

“We are a unique community with a lot of interesting structures and tricky roads and driveways. Having a Fire Chief that’s on island that really understands all of the nuances of community is valuable when push comes to shove in fighting a fire. That knowledge and expertise is here. The decisions are made about what kind of equipment to buy and that ultimately the board and the Fire Chief have local expertise and knowledge and can shape those investments. That doesn’t mean that there couldn’t be considerable benefit from shared resources through some regional offerings that we could elect to participate in.”

“Again, not knowing what the alternative is, it’s hard to really comment on what the upsides or downsides of that might be.” 

“One of the challenges might be the ongoing engagement of volunteers. Our firefighting service relies on members of our community stepping up to volunteer their time to be trained and to come to the need of their neighbours if there is a fire. One fear that I have is if we lost the local leadership and decision making of the firefighting services on Cortes, we might also lose the sense of community spirit that is required to have volunteers. If we lose the volunteers that are heart of the department, we could end up needing to shift more to the ambulance structure, which is paid firefighting services and paid firefighters, which could really, really increase the costs of providing firefighting services on Cortes, which, of course, could result in a considerable tax increase.”

“Those discussions have not taken place in a public forum where we can participate. It’s really important that any decisions regarding the governance of firefighting services on Cortes take place in a public forum so that members of the community can have a say, and at this point, that hasn’t taken place.”

“You’ve reported on our recent requests for increased budget and I’ll just comment on that.  I think CIFFA has been very, very modest in their budget increases over the last decade compared to what you would see  in other fire department budget increases in virtually any city in British Columbia. That’s largely driven by salary and CIFFA has been, I think, quite modest in increases and very smart about getting grants. Like I mentioned, all the new breathing apparatus was purchased with grants. I think they’ve been very prudent and efficient in using taxpayer dollarsfor firefighting services.” 

“With the increased training requirements and with climate change; you look at what happened in Lytton and the  longer, drier summers that we’ve been having.  From a climate change perspective, we know we’re going to have more dry hot summers and so investing in additional training, ensuring we have the right equipment that could be the difference between us as a community being able to fight a fire, and stop a disastrous situation on our island.” 

“Any landowner on Cortes knows that in order to get insurance, we need to have a good firefighting service. Our insurance costs go up or down depending on that. So investing in the training and the equipment to ensure that we have really good firefighting services on Cortes, I really think justifies the increased budget that the CIFFA board has put forward as their draft budget to the SRD.”

“We’re really lucky on Cortes to have a volunteer firefighter fighting department. Those volunteers donate and  contribute so much time to our community. As someone that’s relatively speaking, new to the island, I think many of us take it for granted.  I just think we’re really lucky that we have people willing to put time aside, not just  to do the firefighting part of it, but the training, the equipment and even participating on a board. I can tell you it’s taking a lot  for me,  as a volunteer on the board  to be doing this work.” 

CIFFA’s AGM, Thursday, March 30

“I think we’re really fortunate to have what we have and I hope that the community will renew their membership,  will join the AGM and will support the efforts that we are undertaking to ensure we’ve got really good firefighting on Cortes.” 

“The AGM is Thursday, March 30th, 6:30 PM at Manson’s Hall.  We will have an ability for people to join via Zoom as well.  We’re asking people to renew their membership a week before the AGM, so by March 23rd,  then they can vote. We are really encouraging people to come to the AGM, hear the work that’s underway, give us their opinions about the efforts that the CIFFA board is are undertaking.  We’ll talk about the budget there. We’ll talk about the issues that we’ve talked about today.”

“There’s lots of ways that people can participate. We are  looking for board members, we will elect the board.  We’re always looking for more people  to be volunteer firefighters as well. There’s opportunities to get the training.  This is a wonderful service for our island and it only works by people agreeing to join and participate.” 

CIFFA is also planning to have a pancake breakfast at the Klahoose Multipurpose Building and will post further details when they are available.

Cortes Currents emailed David Leitch, Chief Administrative Officer of the SRD, about these matters two weeks ago and has yet to receive a reply. 

Top image credit: One of Vancouver’s fireboats during Sadhu Johnston’s term as Deputy City Manager (2009-16) – Photo by Sam Churchill via Flickr (CC BY SA, 2.0 License)

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