The Editor,
Re. “Mayor blames provincial downloading for PoCo’s increased firefighting costs” (The Tri-City News, May 5).
Kudos to Port Coquitlam Mayor Greg Moore and councillors Dean Washington and Mike Forrest for their votes against the city budget and the hiring of more firefighters.
As a resident of PoCo, if I call for an ambulance, I want a paramedic and ambulance to attend, not four firefighters and a fire truck. As a taxpayer, I don’t want to pay for four firefighters and a truck to sit around for two and a half hours waiting for an ambulance.
Hiring nine more firefighters will add another $1,000,000 to the budget every year forever and with only advanced first aid training, firefighters are a poor substitute for a fully qualified paramedic.
Wouldn’t a better idea be to not hire the added firefighters, which we clearly don’t need for firefighting, and have the city agree to fund the cost to the province of additional paramedics exclusively for Port Coquitlam? This would save money and we’d get the expertise we need.
Alternatively, instead of hiring more staff highly trained in fire suppression, why doesn’t the fire department hire its own fully qualified paramedics, replace a fire truck with an ambulance and use those resources to attend medical emergencies?
We need some creative thinking rather than “it’s only a .34% lift.”
Bob Elliott, Port Coquitlam
