Chemainus’s Godkin pioneer in logging industry Bantam RedDogs win their McAdam Park debut
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Friday, September 27, 2013
THERE’S GOLD IN THEM THERE PANS Visiting school children are amazed to see Yukon Dan extract real gold from gravel during a special program at the BC Forest Discovery Centre Wednesday. To read more about Yukon Dan and his gold panning presentation, see page 17. For more photos scan this page with the Layar app on your smart phone or go to www.cowichanvalleycitizen.com [LEXI BAINAS/CITIZEN]
Non-fire callouts an ‘onerous financial burden’ FUNDING: Provincial government needs to step up to the table and provide money to help out small fire departments LEXI BAINAS CITIZEN
Tim McGonigle, councillor
The Town of Lake Cowichan wants the province to step up and pay attention (and cash) to deal with a problem that’s hitting many small jurisdictions in the wallet. When volunteer firemen are called out to motor vehicle accidents and to help with what are loosely described as “medical assists”, the money comes out of the town’s coffers and Lake Cowichan councillors have had enough.
Coun. Tim McGonigle, after looking at the fire department bills for the summer, decided to lead the charge. “It’s too high a cost to the municipality. There has to be some way to recoup these costs. The province is downloading this onto volunteer fire departments. It’s not right,” he said. Coun. Bob Day agreed. “Due to the amount of call outs for medical assists and MVAs, you’ll see fires are way down on the list of what they do now,” he said, adding that firefighters must
now take a lot of expensive, timeconsuming training to deal with all extra duties. “I’d like to use a quick analogy. In supermarkets, products have to have the ingredients listed in order of the amount of them inside the product. If we were to look down this list here, fire would be quite far down the list of things a fire department does. I’m looking at my crystal ball and it could be 10 years before we have full-time firefighter payroll if we don’t act on this stuff. I think we should start crafting a resolution
now to go to the Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities,” he said. McGonigle agreed to try that tack, saying, “this will be about the fifth time we’ve tried this but I think we have to keep bringing it forward to reiterate the onerous financial burden on small communities. When 80-90 per cent of your calls are for medical aids and MVAs, it’s up to the departments of health and transportation to repay some of these costs, and See Taxpayer costs • page 4
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