Thank-you Emergency Servcies provider Fund, but...

The volunteer emergency services organizations of Nova Scotia welcomed the province’s announcement of $5 million last year to put money in the hands of fire departments, GSAR and other organizations who qualified. Actually there were so many requests for funding that they had to raise it to $8.1 million at the end of FY 07/08.

The fund was set up with rules and guidelines; each individual organization had to request the funding following these guidelines and applications provided. After all submissions had been received, the committee responsible at the Emergency Services Provider Fund listed who was going to receive how much and a basic description on what they were going to buy with the money.

Local MLAs has been given the opportunity to distribute the funds. They were for everything from buildings to equipment. To be quite honest, this is extraordinary and very much appreciated by all fire departments and other organizations.

Now this is where that little but comes in. You see, the formula for receiving the funding was that you had to have to provide 40 per cent of what the project was worth from your own resources.

Well, this is fine in the case of some departments who have a good cash flow either from being in a highly populated area (levee money) or some very good fund raising or a combination of both.

Having $160,000 on hand to throw into a project was not hard, which allowed them to receive the maximum amount of $250,000 and this is great; the people of Nova Scotia will be safer for these efforts. Yet, it’s not so good for a small rural department that receives an annual operating cost from municipalities of, oh let’s say $65,000 or less -- less than the cost to pay one full time firefighter -- to provide 24/7 emergency first response, including fire and medical, and who are operating 30-year-old trucks.

Well, you see having 40 per cent of anything available is very hard, maybe impossible. Maybe take a chance and go for a couple of small projects and hope there isn’t a $5,000 pump breakdown before your project gets started and you end up not having your 40 per cent available anymore.

Or, there is always go out knocking on doors in your fire district and asking the people if they would once again open up their wallets and hearts so we can get some equipment to provide the protection to them and properly equip the members who are going to protect them and their properties.

Smaller departments face the same challenges as the larger ones when it comes to recruitment and retention and other areas. Then they face some that are more unique.

We sometimes have a larger area that is less populated to cover; our 30-year-old trucks are beaten to pieces driving over what some people refer to as roads, we commonly call them cart tracks.

We handle medical emergencies until an ambulance arrives 30 to 45 minutes later -- and believe me, they push the limit then to get here at that time -- and we appreciate their efforts.

What we want to be able to do is provide the same level of service and protection to everybody in Nova Scotia; out here it is all done by volunteers, 24/7.

If there is a next time, and a little more money becomes available for Emergency Service Providers, let’s see if we can try and take into consideration the smaller rural departments that are operating on a shoestring -- tied together in many places -- budget.

Perhaps, create a different percentage of money that you must have to request funds for a project, maybe 80/20 per cent. Give us a fighting chance to compete and bring ourselves up to a safe and prepared operating level. You never know, with equipment to train and prepare, we may have more volunteers.

Please don’t get me wrong, every amount of money that was given out to the emergency services providers was extremely appreciated, and we look forward to getting on with our small projects.

I have to add a thank-you to this story. Last year, the municipalities that provide our funds did come through with emergency funds for us to purchase new bunker gear and SCBAs, which allows us to train and operate in a safe manner. Thank You East and West Hants.

Yours in Emergency First Response,

Ron Lambert

Deputy Chief

Walton Shore VFD