Friday’s headlines

10 comments

1. Police, Fire and EMS shouldn’t be forced to cut into its ranks when I think efficiencies may be found other places in the services. My suggestion, let look at the fleets of these services. EMS first, while I agree that paramedics respond to minor incidents in vehicles other than full size ambulances do they have to be driving SUVs. Why were suburbans chosen as the vehicle of choice….a hatchback could easily be rigged to provide the same level of service with savings on both the purchase and operation side. Police Service; same thing…does the service really need to be buying the biggest cars on the road..Im pretty sure there are cheaper, smaller, more efficient vehicles that our inner city division could be utilizing…the rest of the world does why are we still stuck with crown vics? The Fire service is a little more difficult but I have read stories that even these vehicles are on the larger side of the choices offered. There may be operational reasons why the larger vehicles are used but it seems that other countries do use smaller vehicles for some parts of the service.
   Last idea for efficiency….merge communications of the three services…

   Despite my opinion I support Toronto’s Police, Fire and EMS.

2. I find it a sad comment on how polarized the discourse in our society is that when one is offering constructive criticism, one feels that a caveat is necessary that one supports the service.

   I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want Police, Fire, and EMS services; it’s not an all or nothing thing. Surely, these services can be examined to find efficiencies, but unfortunately it’s a territorial pissing contest.

3. Ronny, I agree with you regarding the important work done by Police, Fire and EMS (apologies to Crimson for adding the caveat). But I don’t see why these services deserve to be exempt from a review that INCLUDES a look at the staff complement. From what I’ve seen so far, EMS actually seems to be understaffed given the service volumes they are dealing with. But Police and Fire services seems to be considerably over-staffed. On a per-capita basis, we seem to have more firefighters and police officers than any other municipality in Canada. Why? It certainly doesn’t seem to be justified on the basis of crime rates or the miniscule percentage of their response time that firefighters actually spend attending to fires. Having too many people on the payroll of these services is gravy, even if it could be said that each staff member in these services exercises professionalism and integrity in their work.

4. Ronny, those are good points and worth exploring for the emergency services. However I expect discussions of, say, more fuel-efficient vehicles will get bogged down in the same problem the TTC identifies when people suggest it out smaller buses on some routes: operating costs are totally dominated by wages and benefits. That’s neither a good or bad thing–just reality in these public services, and if serious cuts are to be made that’s where the expense is.

5. There was a very interesting article on the fire department and EMS a few weeks ago:
   http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/07/16/were-in-a-war-with-the-fire-department/

   It’s worth reading to learn about “stopping the clock” which helps explain why a giant fire truck shows up to a call for rather minor medical emergencies. 

   As to Ronny’s suggestion about replacing vehicles, it’s probably worth noting that replacing vehicles is a net cost, would take years to implement, would be an operating cost and would take few years before it starts lowering the operating costs. And, as mentioned, the largest cost in their operating budget is wages.

   I’d suggest the biggest impediment to lowering the costs of the fire department relate to the caveats people have to state…

6. I agree what many of you are saying (Matt C, SAMG) regarding the staff, I only tried to point out that while not biggest expense the fleets of these services may be a source for some savings. If in fact additional savings are needed then a staff reduction may be the next route, but id like to the other parts of the services looked at first before we start cutting our cops, firemen and paramedics. Hopefully if cuts are needed it can be done with retirement packages and similar….

   Regarding their comm services I have since learned that there are only two comm facilities in T.O. housing the three services each building providing backup to the other…pretty efficient.

7. SAMG Can you please provide statistics to back up your comment, and a link to where you obtained that information.

8. Toronto Fire is already spread dangerously thin and understaffed compared with other municipalities, he said.

   It’s a claim that seems to be supported by the KPMG core service review, which found that “Toronto has fewer vehicles deployed per capita than other cities in Ontario.”

   KPMG also found Toronto’s travel time to calls is 24 per cent longer than the council-approved target.

   http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1024581–firefighters-next-on-layoff-list http://publications.gc.ca/collection_2010/statcan/85-225-X/85-225-x2010000-eng.pdf. Toronto Police Service, per capita, is 7th on the list in Canada.

   Industry standards stipulate that one ambulance should be available for every 30,000 citizens. The 2010 population of Toronto was 2,503,281. Thus, that would equate to 83.44 ambulances in total to meet this standard. TEMS has 155 ambulances and staffs 90 cars a day minimum.

   These statistics lead me to believe to that Toronto Fire Services is understaffed, Toronto Police Services don’t have as many cops for the population of Toronto as several other Canadian cities do and that Toronto EMS has more that the industry standard stipulates. Looking forward to your reply SAMG

9. Yes and Toronto’s emergency services are among some of the best and closely coordinated communications and dispatching set-up. And TPS can become so backed up with calls on most nights that response to an incident can take hours  because there are not enough officers on to handle the call volume.

10. Paramedic vehicles have equipment that would not fit in a small vehicle such as a fridge and heater (for temperature sensitive medicines). But I still wonder why they cant use smaller wagons like you see in Europe. One answer may be that it takes the menacing grill of an SUV to get people in NA to get out of the way.