Chair's Message

Welcome to two new CREST users – CRD Hazmat Team and VIHA Emergency Management & Business Continuity. Expanding the number of users enhances interoperability for emergency service providers and provides new funding sources for CREST.

On the expenses side, CREST fairs well against a formula used by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business that calls for spending increases less than population growth and inflation combined. In 2010, growth in the CRD was just under 1% and inflation was 2.1% for a total of 3.1%. The CREST budget increase for 2011 is 3%.
 

Lessons from the BP Oil Spill

Join us on April 13th for this spring’s CREST Forum. Guest speaker Brant Mitchell, Deputy Director in the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness for the State of Louisiana will share their experience with the BP oil spill.

Mitchell will talk about how they dealt with the challenges of interoperability in a wide scale disaster and the lessons learned.

The Forum is on Wednesday, April 13th from 10:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. at the Hotel Grand Pacific. Click here to register.

User Tip

To maintain the optimum performance of both the mobile and portable radios, CREST recommends using only qualified radio shops for any repair or maintenance work.

Reaching Out

CREST presented at the national APCO (Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials) conference in Vancouver. APCO is dedicated to enhancing public safety communications across Canada.

CREST was a sponsor of the 5th Canadian Public Safety Interoperability Forum in Victoria in December where Canadian responder associations united to move forward on 700MHz for critical public safety data.

CREST supports the need for access to 700MHz believing that public safety agencies need this spectrum now, and increasingly in the future. This position was presented at a recent workshop hosted by Emergency Management BC and the Ministry of Citizens’ Services. For information or to have your say.

Extreme Weather

Snowfalls this winter have pushed the CREST system to the extreme. On Nov. 22nd, system use spiked to almost double the usual daily volume, processing 31,983 calls. Immediate system access (no busy signal) was 97.81% with an average wait time (if you got a busy signal) of 0.98 seconds. The CREST system has four levels of back-up to deal with disruptions from weather or anything else.

The Winner is . . .

The lucky winner of an ipad draw prize for completing the CREST user satisfaction survey in Dec. was Federico Pinzarrone, a paramedic with the BC Ambulance Service. The survey results are being presented to user and service committees, and will be used to enhance services and continually work towards meeting the needs of users. Many thanks to the almost 300 users who participated in the survey.

Committees of the Board

New appointments to CREST’s committees of the Board:
Finance - Karel Roessingh (Chair), Highlands; Cliff McNeil-Smith, Sidney; Kelly Folk, RCMP; Larry Tremblay, Metchosin; Perry Clark, Province of BC; Hy Freedman and Bob Shaw, independent members.
Governance - Nils Jensen (Chair), Oak Bay; Garth Hendren, Salt Spring; Heidi Rast, View Royal; Kelly Folk, RCMP; Perry Clark, Province of BC; and Shawn Carby, BC Ambulance.