Emergency mobile system obsolete: premier

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This article was published 18/11/2016 (3526 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The province’s “deteriorating” emergency mobile communications system is putting Manitobans at risk, and the replacement cost is estimated at $400 million, Premier Brian Pallister said Friday.

Pallister blamed the former NDP government for the delay to replace the FleetNet system, which he claimed has been operating on “Band-Aid and duct tape” fixes for as long as eight years.

“This is a system that is so vulnerable to failure, that replacement parts have to be purchased from other jurisdictions or… even sources from eBay,” Pallister he said. “That’s where we’re at.

“We have a system that works a lot of the time. Unfortunately, it increasingly does not work.”

The FleetNet system, which began operating in 1990, is shared by several services, including firefighters, local police, municipalities, conservation officers and RCMP during emergencies such as fires and floods.

Pallister said the NDP was notified as early as 2008 that the provider, MTS, would no longer build or support equipment for the system.

In the last two years, FleetNet has experienced about 1,900 hours of outages, Pallister added, including during a wildfire in southeast Manitoba in 2012.

“During that fire, we were told that there were personnel that could not be contacted because the system went down,” Pallister said. “And you’re in the middle of fighting a fire. I don’t need to elaborate. That’s really, really a dangerous situation.

Pallister said the FleetNet system was one example of how his government — on the eve of Monday’s throne speech — will focus on long-term solutions, instead of “making you buy shiny new things.”

However, Interim NDP Leader Flor Marcelino said Pallister’s assertions about the emergency system “created a false justification for his plans to cut jobs and services.”

“Contrary to the premier’s assertions, the previous government began planning and took concrete steps to replace FleetNet years ago,” Marcellino said in a statement. “He should have had that information within a very short time of taking office.”

‘This is a system that is so vulnerable to failure, that replacement parts have to be purchased from other jurisdictions or… even sources from eBay. That’s where we’re at’– Premier Brian Pallister

Pallister’s news conference was “an attempt to manufacture a crisis so he could defend cutting services. He should not use FleetNet as an excuse to cut the services families rely on,” she said.

Meanwhile, the premier said Manitoba is the last jurisdiction in Canada that has not upgraded its system. Preliminary estimates to replace the system are about $400 million, Pallister said, and it would take three to four years to complete.

Asked how the PCs would be able to spend upwards of $400 million on a new system while lowering the deficit, he replied: “I definitely never said it would be easy. I’m not going to do it by ignoring situations like this.”

randy.turner@freepress.mb.ca