Kitchener takes over fire dispatch services in Stratford
Fire services in Stratford will soon be dispatched out of Kitchener.
Kitchener Fire Chief Bob Gilmore says the local department already dispatches for Waterloo, Cambridge and Waterloo Region’s four townships. Now they’re adding the City of Stratford to the list.
“The big reason it’s happening is the CRTC [Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission] is implementing what they call Next Generation 9-1-1 and [for] a lot of the smaller dispatch centres, it’s an exorbitant cost to upgrade their technology,” Gilmore said. “And so it’s trending throughout the province actually that the smaller centres are being absorbed by the bigger regions.”
The province says Next Generation 9-1-1 will allow the public to share more information with 911 dispatchers including text messages and video. It will also give emergency operators and dispatchers the ability to identify the location of a call using GPS coordinates.
Emergency communication centres across Ontario have until March 2025 to transition to the new system.
Last month, the province pledged to spend $78 million on telecommunications infrastructure to help municipalities and emergency response centres make the switch.
Kitchener Fire will get just under $714,000 of that money.
Gilmore says it won’t be a problem for Kitchener to take on Stratford’s call volume.
“Their call volume is approximately 2,400 calls a year. So we’re currently about 32,000 in the region, so we’d go to 34,000 [calls per year].”
Gilmore says employees with Stratford’s dispatch centre have been re-assigned and will not lose their jobs. Kitchener Fire currently has 17 dispatchers.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Prince William and Kate release photo of daughter Charlotte to mark ninth birthday
Prince William and his wife Kate released a picture of their daughter Charlotte to mark the princess's ninth birthday on Thursday.
This Canadian restaurant just lowered its prices. Here's how it did it
A Canadian restaurant lowered its prices this week, and though news of price tags dropping rather than climbing sounds unusual, the business strategy in this case is not, according to experts in the field.
Concerns about Plexiglas prompt inspections at some Loblaws locations in Ottawa
Inspections are underway at more than one Loblaws location in Ottawa after complaints were filed about tall Plexiglas barriers.
'Oh, there you go': Tyler Black, son of veteran broadcaster Rod Black, has memorable Major League Baseball debut
Canadian baseball player Tyler Black made a major splash in his first-ever big league game for the Milwaukee Brewers on Tuesday night.
Facial reconstruction reveals what a 40-something Neanderthal woman may have looked like
Scientists studying a Neanderthal woman's remains have painstakingly pieced together her skull from 200 bone fragments to understand what she may have looked like.
Weight-loss drug Wegovy available in Canada starting May 6
The makers of Ozempic say their weight-loss drug Wegovy will be available to patients in Canada starting Monday.
Five human skeletons, missing hands and feet, found outside house of Nazi leader Hermann Goring
Archeologists have unearthed the skeletons of five people, missing their hands and feet, at a former Nazi military base in Poland.
Ontario man loses $1,500 applying for Nexus cards on social media
The trusted traveller program between Canada and the United States is extremely popular and almost two million Canadians have a Nexus card.
Companies letting customers opt out of Mother's Day ads
In an effort to balance the profitability of Mother's Day with the pain it causes some people, some brands are offering customers the choice to opt out of Mother's Day email advertising.