Fire paramedic service gets drone, libraries get charging stations in city hall's annual 'Dragon's Den'

The Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service received a green light to buy a drone and libraries won approval to install mobile-device charging stations when four city councillors held a meeting North Kildonan's Jeff Browaty described as city hall's "annual version of Dragon's Den."

Once a year, the Browaty-chaired innovation committee considers pitches from city councillors and departments for cash from the city's capital innovation fund.

There's $1 million in the kitty and the committee does not have to spend it all. Couns. Browaty, John Orlikow (River Heights-Fort Garry), Cindy Gilroy (Daniel McIntyre) and Marty Morantz (Charleswood-Tuxedo) considered 17 pitches for the cash on Tuesday morning.

• Fire-paramedic service wants to fly its own drone
• Winnipeg Parking Authority wants to try out body cameras
• Winnipeg pools eyeball surveillance cameras

The councillors approved $32,000 to install two charging stations at the Millennium Library and one each at 19 other libraries. They also approved a fire-paramedic service drone at a cost of $32,000 for the unmanned aerial vehicle as well as training. 

Fire-paramedic service training officer Scott Wilkinson said the drone can determine where it's safe for firefighters to go, assist with search and rescues and locate hot spots that still need to be doused.

"It would be a great asset to fly over, identify hotspots and get our crews back to the station in a much more timely manner," Wilkinson said.

The innovation committee was also impressed by a proposal to purchase automatic cardiopulmonary-resuscitation machines for all city ambulances. But they balked at approving the $438,000 cost without going through a public-tender process first or asking the provincial government to fund part of the purchase. 

They wound up approving $70,000 to purchase four of the life-saving machines for short-term use.

Without the devices or other similar devices, it's almost impossible to conduct CPR properly in a moving vehicle, said Chris Cauthers, the fire-paramedic service's acting liaison officer to the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority.

The devices also improve safety for fire-paramedic staff, Cauthers said.

"Right now, one provider has to stand up in the back of the ambulance to provide chest-compressions on the way to the hospital. As you can imagine, there's plenty of hazards, standing up in the back of a moving vehicle," he said.

The committee also liked a Tinder-like app that matches up heart-attack victims with nearby people who know how to perform CPR, which requires $14,000 a year in operating funding. Councillors voted to refer that request to the 2017 budget process because the innovation committee can not allocate operating funds

Proposals rejected by the committee, at least for now, included a $333,000 surveillance system for city pools as well as a $33,000 pilot project that would have allowed Winnipeg Parking Authority enforcement officers to test-drive body cameras.

Browaty said parking-authority body cameras would require the use of some operating funds and posited their use would pose legal and privacy challenges for the city. He also acknowledged the optics of allowing parking-enforcement officers to wear body cameras before police officers don them.

Nonetheless, Browaty said the proposal has merit and should be revisited because unlike police officers, parking enforcement officers typically work alone.

"People get pretty agitated and pretty worked up over parking tickets at time and (enforcement officers) do take a fair amount of abuse and even assault," he said.