Regional 9-1-1 Emergency Call Service

The Central Coast Regional District (CCRD) is establishing 9-1-1 as a regional emergency call service. Following a feasibility study completed with MX Webb Consulting Inc. and consultation with the Nuxalk and Heiltsuk Nations, the CCRD is moving forward with the Regional 9-1-1 Emergency Call Service Establishment Bylaw No. 566, 2026.

Establishing 9-1-1 service requires the CCRD to formally adopt it as a service the Regional District provides. The Board has determined that this should be done through an Alternative Approval Process (AAP) — a process which allows electors to indicate whether they are against a local government proposal moving forward. The Bylaw has been submitted and received approval from the Inspector of Municipalities. The AAP can now follow the timeline approved by the Board.

Reasons for Establishment

The feasibility study included extensive consultation with the CCRD staff, emergency response personnel, provincial government staff, and community representatives, along with a site visit and documentation review. The work identified several gaps in how emergency calling currently works across the Central Coast:

• Multiple emergency numbers. Residents currently rely on different phone numbers and different processes to reach fire, ambulance, and police, depending on the department or agency involved.
• No automatic caller location. Because emergency calls are routed through the regular public phone system, call takers cannot automatically see a caller’s location or identity. This can delay how quickly a call is created and lead to responders being sent to inaccurate locations.
• No region-wide coordination. Without a formal 9-1-1 program, there is no consistent, region-wide approach to emergency call handling or service performance reporting, both of which are needed to keep the service efficient and reliable.

A formal 9-1-1 service fixes these directly by having a single, well-known number, automatic caller location, and coordinated, accountable service across the Central Coast.

A second driver is the national transition to Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG9-1-1). The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has set a deadline of March 2027 for all parts of Canada with existing enhanced 9-1-1 (E9-1-1) service — which includes most of British Columbia — to transition to NG9-1-1. NG9-1-1 offers significant operational and public safety benefits over current systems. It delivers more information to 9-1-1 call answer points and dispatch centres, improves information sharing between emergency response agencies, and supports new media types such as real-time text messaging. These added capabilities also make the service more complex and demanding to implement and operate.

Services and Costs

The service will provide NG9-1-1 primary call answer with fire dispatch, thereby meeting the national NG9-1-1 standard for how emergency calls are received and located, so that call takers can automatically see a caller’s location and route help quickly and accurately across the Central Coast. A significant portion of the one-time implementation cost for Tier 2 and Tier 3 services can be obtained through a grant program administered by the UBCM to support NG9-1-1 implementation across BC.

Estimated costs:

Table Summary of Costs for Tier 2 Service