A Victoria resident says he’s frustrated that his calls to 911 were transferred to a series of dispatchers, a frustration shared by politicians and emergency workers whose calls for a single dispatch centre for the region are falling on deaf ears.

Justin Hiscox, who runs a designated driving service called Wise Choice, said he called 911 about a possible drunk driver after seeing a northbound car almost hit the centre median three times on the Pat Bay Highway.

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“I was at Beaver Lake, so in Saanich, and as soon as I hit the imaginary border line I had to be transferred to Central Saanich,” Hiscox said.

His experience was worse a month earlier when he called 911 about a serious two-car crash at Tillicum Road near Burnside Road West.

Hiscox said he had to tell his story three times to three call-takers as he was bounced between police and fire departments.

“This shouldn’t take 10, 15 minutes. This should be a two-minute conversation,” he said. “That’s someone’s life that you’re playing with.”

Victoria deputy fire chief Paul Bruce said the standard is for a dispatcher to take information and dispatch within 60 seconds.

Victoria Mayor Dean Fortin presented Hiscox’s experience at a Capital Regional District protective services committee meeting Wednesday as an example supporting a move to a single dispatch centre for the region.

“How do we get a regional 911 centre?” Fortin asked. “This is about public safety. … After that we can deal with jurisdictional issues and issues of money.”

The fractured emergency communications system was criticized during the coroner’s inquest into the 2007 Oak Bay murder-suicide in which Peter Lee killed his son, his wife and her parents before killing himself.

A frantic 911 call was transferred through a maze of dispatchers and police officers from different departments.

A CRD 911 police working group, consisting of Victoria police and the RCMP, earlier this month backed a single dispatch centre. However, Saanich police, who patrol the region’s largest municipality, are not in the working group.

In 2008, Saanich spent $600,000 on a purpose-built communications centre, designed to withstand a major earthquake and backed up by the emergency communications system, E-Common, on the Lower Mainland. The centre dispatches police calls for Saanich and Oak Bay police and fire calls for Saanich, Oak Bay, Esquimalt, North Saanich, Central Saanich and Sidney.

Saanich Mayor Frank Leonard said “our door is open” to any police or fire departments that want to use Saanich’s dispatch centre.

Langford announced last year it will spend $100,000 to upgrade its dispatch centre, which serves 16 fire departments in the West Shore, the Island’s west coast and the Gulf Islands.

The Victoria Fire Department needs to improve its out-of-date dispatch capabilities, but it’s unclear whether Victoria will upgrade or contract out with Saanich or Langford.

In September, B.C. Ambulance opened a new communications centre in Langford that serves the entire Island.

The maze of dispatch services in an area of 350,000 people has left Hiscox shaking his head and dreading the next time he has to call 911.

“It’s not right.”

kderosa@timescolonist.com