Archive 2008 – Honourable John van Dongen
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December 11, 2008
SAANICH INTEGRATED POLICE/FIRE COMMUNICATIONS CENTRE OFFICIALLY OPENED
SAANICH – Solicitor General John van Dongen officially opened the new centre on December 11, 2008. The centre provides 9-1-1 service to all fire departments on the Saanich peninsula and Saanich and Oak Bay police departments. Joining him were Oak Bay-Gordon Head MLA, the Honourable Ida Chong, and Saanich Mayor Frank Leonard.
L-R: Solicitor General John van Dongen with Oak Bay-Gordon Head MLA, the Honourable Ida Chong, and Saanich Mayor Frank Leonard.
Margaret Popejoy showed the Solicitor General the capabilities of the new communications centre, including GPS which provides visual tracking of police vehicles.
Saanich Fire Chief David Ward briefed the Solicitor General John van Dongen and Wes Shoemaker, Associate Deputy Minister, Emergency Management B.C., on the security of the new centre, which has a back-up fibre optic line in case one is damaged, and has a high degree of interoperability with all other 9-1-1 services in southwest B.C.
“Facilities like this continue to reaffirm that traffic fine revenues do make a difference,” van Dongen said. “And we appreciate working with local governments in ways that will improve community safety.” $600,000 in traffic fine revenue returned to the municipality by the province was used to build the state-of-the art facility which is built to post-disaster standards. It is compatible with emergency communications systems on Vancouver Island and Metro Vancouver, essentially creating a virtual 9-1-1 system.
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