Image: Screenshot, City of Chilliwack / Former Chilliwack City Council candidate Lisa Morry asked council members at their meeting Tuesday evening (Jan. 10) to hire 60 additional firefighters, not just two as outlined in the City's 2023 Financial Plan.
City's 2023 Financial Plan

Former Chilliwack council candidate calls for 60 more firefighters, not two as outlined in city’s 2023 financial plan

Jan 11, 2023 | 11:37 AM

CHILLIWACK — Former Chilliwack City Council candidate Lisa Morry came prepared with a big ask.

Morry, who ran for council in 2018 and finished 12th out of 14 candidates, called for Chilliwack City Council to hire a lot more firefighters than what it is currently being proposed for the city’s 2023 Financial Plan.

The municipal budget document funds three additional RCMP officers, an additional RCMP support position, two more firefighters, and two additional bylaw officers who will focus on those experiencing homelessness, in 2023.

The 2023 Financial Plan authorizes a property tax increase of 4.48 per cent to fund council objectives like additional public safety personnel.

But Morry sought a much larger personnel increase.

“I’m asking you to exceed your proposed budget by hiring 60 additional firefighters that the firefighters union asked for last year,” Morry said while masked at the podium Tuesday night (Jan. 10). “And, I said this last year when I spoke to you at budget time, with the equipment and training that would go along with that, as well as identifying a location on the fire hall near the highway as requested by Firefighters Local 2826 last year. I don’t think they actually requested it on the highway, but yeah, they do want one near the highway because that allows them to get around town faster. It’s a challenge of the far-flung nature of our community.”

She referenced a social media post from the Chilliwack Professional Firefighters Facebook page in which it said Chilliwack had less than half the full-time staffing levels per capita when compared to municipalities of comparable size. It encouraged online viewers to fill out a link to the city’s budget survey.

“This directly impacts response times and service levels,” the Chilliwack Firefighters Local [2826] wrote on October 20, 2022. “There is no known plan to add new halls or staffed engines as our city grows at one of the fastest rates in the nation. Please fill out the survey to have your voice heard and tell council that they need to invest in the Fire Department.”

However, on its Facebook page, Local 2826 wrote that Chilliwack should upgrade its staffing model rather than the current platform of about 40 full-time firefighters and 140 paid on-call firefighters.

“When an emergency occurs our system relies on paid on calls to leave their home or job, drive to the hall, wait for a full engine (5 fire fighters) to arrive, then respond to the incident,” Local 2826 wrote on Facebook. “Every time this is slower than having staffed fire fighters. Sometimes the responses are good, sometimes poor, and sometimes the halls are unable to respond. Our city has the lowest level of medical response from its fire department, no staffed swift water rescue, no heavy rescue, etc. It’s time for a city of 100,000-plus people to start getting the resources they deserve. Consider these facts when thinking of those stuck in a house fire, pinned in a motor vehicle accident, or in need of life saving interventions.”

Which is exactly why Morry pressed council to consider the impact of underfunding the Chilliwack Fire Department.

“When the fire department is not funded to do its job, members of our community will suffer losses,” Morry said. “There have been a number of notable losses in the past year since I last spoke to you about fire department funding. People have lost their homes and their belongings. An interface fire on Promontory this past fall, just before the election, could have been catastrophic in that it involved homes, trails and trees. You can still see the damage up there. The staircase has been fixed but the trees are all burnt. It could have been a lot worse. That fire could have spread through the homes in that bowl that contains Promontory. It might not have stopped. People could have lost their homes and maybe some people could have lost their lives.”

Image: Mike Vanden Bosch / PML / This is the Promontory fire that Lisa Morry referenced during her remarks Tuesday night. The fire occurred in September 2022.

Morry cited statistics showing that fire damage in Chilliwack totaled $7,584,155 in 2020, of which structure fires accounted for 93 per cent. The following year in 2021, losses amounted to $16,011,950, Morry said. “It’s gone up quite a bit,” she added.

Councillors wound up approving a 4.48 per cent property tax increase Tuesday night as part of the City’s 2023 Financial Plan.

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