Costs of firefighting going up so Corner Brook looks to sharing services with neighbouring communities

However, Councillor Charles Pender says it’s too late to get into this now with a new council being sworn in during October but Councillor Bill Griffin says putting this off now is not the right thing to do. 

The costs of providing a high quality, professional firefighting and bylaw enforcement to residents and businesses in Corner Brook are going up so council has decided to find ways to increase revenue. At this week’s public meeting, Councillor Pamela Gill spoke about how these services can remain sustainable with new agreements with neighboring communities in the Humber-Bay of Islands areas. At the same time, many smaller communities are struggling to provide these services and wish to partner with larger centres that have capacity. The City of Corner Brook has entertained the provision of services to neighbouring communities in the past, with the stipulation that such arrangements do not negatively impact service delivery to the City and the arrangements generate positive net revenues for City coffers (example: Mount Moriah).

Staff have indicated that there could be great benefits to the City from these types of agreements, including more revenue and access to better equipment. However, Councillor Charles Pender says it’s too late to get into this now with a new council being sworn in during October but Councillor Bill Griffin says putting this off now is not the right thing to do. 

The city’s Director of Protective Services, Todd Flynn, says  a lot of research into this has been done with more to come. In the end,  council approved the motion for the City Manager to explore and develop possible models of shared services. Currently, Corner Brook does not share fire services with other communities but does have agreements in place for the provision of water.