Letter to the Editor published in April 2, 2025 Sounder
Here is my pitch for moving the Gabriola Volunteer Fire Department (GVFD) over to the Regional District of Nanaimo (RDN). I know this idea isn’t that popular, but I believe that is because people don’t really understand what it means. I would like to present my perspective.
The Gabriola Fire Protection Improvement District (GFPID) is an Improvement District, which is a local government. They have the authority to tax property on Gabriola and they do. Think of them as a one department government, that one department is the GVFD, a fire department. Generally local governments do all kinds of things, the GFPID does one thing.
The RDN is different, it’s big, it does all kinds of things. It stretches from Cassidy in the South to Deep Bay in the North and includes Gabriola. They pick up our garbage and have parks on Gabriola. Within the RDN there are sixteen fire departments, four municipal ones, six improvement districts, four society ones and two operated by the RDN itself. In 2020 the RDN did a Fire Department Governance Review, google it, it’s online. It investigated what it would look like if the society operated fire departments transitioned over to the RDN. There were six and two of these departments have moved over. What is good about this report is that it gives us a pretty good idea of what it would be like if we dissolved the GFPID and we moved the GVFD over to the RDN.
The first thing that jumps out at me, is that instead of our Fire Chief reporting to the GFPID Trustees, he would report to the Emergency Manager for Gabriola and the area. One of the things that I don’t think that most people understand is that the Emergency Manager for Gabriola works at the RDN. Emergency management has changed significantly within BC over the last ten years. It used to all be about response. We managed emergencies by responding to them. This has changed. Emergency management is now about analyzing your hazards, mitigating them, preparedness, response and recovery. It is the recognition that resilience is just as important as response. This is coming out of the United Nations Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. From that, the Province has tasked all municipalities and regional districts with emergency management. Therefore amalgamating the GVFD into the RDN would embed our fire department directly into our island’s emergency management structure. That makes a lot of sense in my head. The argument against this amalgamation is to maintain independence for our fire department. But independence from the emergency management structure for the island? That should give us pause for thought. To be fair, interoperability is a big part of emergency management, so I am not saying that what we have doesn’t work. What I am saying is that amalgamation would be better and I’m pointing out that the RDN is already the center of emergency management on this island. The GVFD is the center of response, a subset of emergency management.
The second thing that jumps out at me is cost. In that RDN Governance Review they explore how taxpayer rates will change for the areas. So, me being an engineer, I recreated their table in a spreadsheet and added in the Gabriola numbers and I came up with a 11.8% tax reduction for our fire services, if we moved over to the RDN. I’ll be the first to admit this is a pretty iffy number, but the real take away from this calculation is, why. The main reason we have a taxation reduction, is that Nanoose Bay has a disproportionately high assessment base, compared to all the other areas, including Gabriola. Basically, Nanoose Bay would help pay for our fire department on Gabriola. And, Nanoose Bay was the first fire department to move over to the RDN, therefore this taxation saving is locked in.
Another thing to recognize is that improvement districts are an obsolete form of government. Improvement districts first started appearing in 1920. Regional districts were introduced in 1965 and were drawn to cover pretty much the entire Province. Everyone that lives in BC, lives in a municipality, a regional district or First Nations land. Everyone. Improvement districts are sporadic. This is why the Province has tasked municipalities and regional districts with emergency management – so everyone has it. In 2006 the Province published an Improvement District Governance: Policy Statement, google it, it’s online. The policy is to quit making improvement districts and facilitate the dissolution of them, with a vision of having zero. I will claim that it is not a matter of if Gabriola loses the GFPID, but a matter of when.
Now might be a good time. I understand that there are staunch defenders of the GFPID and of the status quo. But… come on. Pull your head out of the sand. Things aren’t good. I think it is fairly easy to argue that the dysfunctionality of that organization is affecting operations. How can it not? You really have to piss off a group of volunteer firefighters in order to get them to ratify a union. Seriously. Things aren’t good.
Our current mechanism for fixing this with an improvement district, is to elect new Trustees. We get to elect two of seven, sometime this year. I’ll bite. I’ll run. I truly want to see this department have better days. But as I talk to people, they tell me there is no way I am going to be able to fix this place, the dysfunctionality is too deeply ingrained. I understand what they are saying and tend to agree with them, but we gotta try. The GVFD is too important of an institution on this island, to not try.
The other solution is to dissolve the GFPID and move the GVFD over to the RDN. No more Trustees. The toxic politics around this organization will largely disappear. The GVFD will get a legitimate and credible HR department – I’m pretty sure that was what the union was about. I think that management would improve. We embed our fire department into the emergency management organization for our island. We lower taxes. It makes a lot of sense in my head, although I recognize that probably the majority of people on this island disagree with this idea. I ask you to think about it… maybe a letter to Sheila Malcolmson if you agree with me.
~ David Chorneyko
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