All issues are related Policing, Mental Health, Addiction, Housing, Parenting
The Regional Police issue should go to refferendum because we need new policies on policing in BC

OK. I'm confused... Regionalizing police services does have its merits but if the mayors were truly interested in saving money, they would requesting two things.

First being the regionalization of all the fire services in the lower mainland. This in itself eliminates the geographical boundaries of every municipality. In other words, firefighters could go anywhere in the lower mainland during their shift as the need arises. It eliminates the duplication in staffing that presently exists and duplication of administration to support it. For example, Queensbough has 3 different fire departments serving it where only one is necessary. Hazmat, High angle rescue and all other specialty teams could be shared, again reducing duplication.

The second being that the municipalities demand that the provincial government fulfill its obligation and provide adequate ambulance service for the lower mainland. Lets face it. Firefighters are not paramedics. They act as first responders with limited medical training to assist the ambulance service. If there was adequate ambulance coverage, fire service call volumes will drop significantly (as much as 65% in some communities), thus reducing the wear and tear on fire equipment. Paramedics are paid a lot less than firefighters, Paramedics respond in teams of two in an ambulance instead of four firefighters on a fire truck. Fire trucks costs 7 to 10 times that of an ambulance and are not capable of transporting patients. It has been proven through may studies that less than 5% of medical calls are actually time sensitive. An example of a time sensitive call would be cardiac arrest.

100s of millions of dollars could be saved by regionalizing the fire services without any lay offs or sacrificing present fire protection. Within the US most major cities are looking or changing fire service delivery because of its huge costs. It's time to streamline and reduce waste and redundancy within the fire services too!