Texada Rescue: Summary

Texada Rescue/First Responders is an essential service that qRD has arbitrarily starved for funds since 2015. A new Rescue truck will be needed within 4 to 5 years, along with specialized life- saving equipment needed for this service. Furthermore, qRD has created an unfair approach to funding the service whereby some Texadans pay more than others for the same emergency service — without justification.

We can fix these problems with a Service Review, described below.

Discussion:
This is about life and death: First Responder volunteers from Texada’s two Fire Departments will come to your aid in a medical emergency, a motor vehicle crash or in any accident in a remote spot that can’t be reached by paramedics. First Responders serve as back-up to BC paramedics in these emergency situations. The island-wide qRD First Responder service is popularly known as “Texada Rescue” and it
has two problems that require a Service Review to solve:

First problem: qRD has frozen Texada Rescue’s budget at $15,000 per year since 2015, and plans to keep it frozen at that level to 2030 and beyond. There is no justification for this financial stranglehold on Texada Rescue. Operating costs have gone up significantly in the last 11 years; a budget of at least $30,000 a year would be more appropriate.

However, the cost of operating Texada Rescue includes a specially-outfitted truck that carries “Jaws of Life” and other life-saving gear not otherwise available on our island. This truck, which is housed at the Van Anda Fire Hall, is nearing the end of its life and will need replacing sometime in the next five years or less. That can’t be done on an annual budget of $15,000 or even $30,000, because the cost of a newer (used) truck and updated rescue equipment will be approximately $100,000.

How can Texada Rescue find $100,000 for a new (used) truck and obtain a proper operating budget without raising taxes or expensive borrowing? Simple: use the Service Review process to reallocate funds from Texada Airport. As of 2026 the airport has accumulated a surplus of over $650,000 and is collecting significantly more in taxes each year than it needs to operate sustainably. Much of this surplus is currently intended to support qRD’s vision and plan for multi-million-dollar expansion of
Texada Airport’s infrastructure, which I oppose as not being in our community’s best interest. I’ve proposed an alternative vision and plan for the airport.

Directly reallocating funds from one service to another isn’t allowed under the Local Government Act, but there is a way to do it indirectly. Let the airport operate for four or five years by using its accumulated surplus, and don’t collect taxes for the airport during that time. Instead, raise the Texada Rescue budget enough to save for a new (used) truck within a few years and to operate at $30,000/year from 2027 onward. Thus, airport funding goes down, while Texada Rescue funding goes up by a lesser amount, so there’s no net increase in taxes. There might even be a net decrease.

Second problem: qRD is supposed to provide full funding for Texada Rescue, which is paid for exclusively by Texada taxpayers. But qRD only pays for part of the service. The rest is covered by taxpayers in the Van Anda and Gillies Bay Improvement Districts, through their respective Fire Departments. If you live in either one of those two local fire districts then you are paying for Texada Rescue twice: once on your qRD taxes, and again through your Improvement District taxes.

But Texadans who live outside the two local fire districts pay only once: the qRD portion of Texada Rescue’s budget. This two-tier funding policy by qRD is unfair and runs counter to the RD bylaw that established Texada Rescue. That bylaw created one service island-wide, to be paid for equally by everyone. We can accomplish that through a Service Review that leads to a new Service Agreement between Texada’s Improvement Districts and qRD.