Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (June 17/05) - A city councillor says it could be a year or more before a 9-1-1 emergency phone system comes to Yellowknife.

Coun. Wendy Bisaro, who heads the committee investigating how to implement the system, said it's very unlikely it will be up and running this year as originally planned.

"An optimistic date would be 12 months but I'm betting it's more like 18," said Bisaro.

She said part of the problem is a cost estimate provided by the RCMP last year to set up a 9-1-1 line that the city administration felt was too high.

That triggered a request for proposals with hopes that someone else could provide the service for less, but before one could be issued, the RCMP offered another estimate more to the city's liking at $220,500. According to Mayor Gord Van Tighem, the RCMP's original price tag for start-up was "two or three times that amount."

Bisaro said another problem is the workload council puts on City Hall.

"We keep giving staff things to do that keep interrupting things that are already in the works," said Bisaro.

Nonetheless, the city plans to get at least a few things started in the next couple months, she said.

Application for service fee

The city, along with NorthwesTel, will apply to the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission for permission to institute a surcharge on telephone lines that would cover the costs for 9-1-1.

Bisaro predicts it will cost an extra $2 a month per each phone line in the city to pay for the service.

Cost estimates for the first year of service vary slightly: From just over $1 million for a system run by the RCMP, or an added $100,000 for a system run out of the Yellowknife Fire Hall.

The city will once again ask the territorial government to help cover some of the costs as the neighbouring Yukon government did when its capital Whitehorse implemented an emergency phone system in 1994. Yellowknife and Iqaluit are the only the Canadian capital cities without one.

The government said it won't commit to a 9-1-1 line until all the communities are ready to join in.

Mayor Gord Van Tighem hopes the government will change its tune.

"I still look at this as a Northwest Territories-wide program," said Van Tighem.

"We're just doing the first couple rungs on the ladder."

Other councillors say they're concerned about phone service fees being charged fairly.

Coun. Alan Woytuik said cell phone subscribers should be spared a 9-1-1 charge because they will already be paying for it on their land line.

"That way you get nailed twice," he said during a committee meeting, Monday.

Coun. Doug Witty wondered how much businesses would have to pay.

"There's some businesses with 20 or 30 lines," said Witty.

"What happens to them."