1 year later, new Whitehorse emergency dispatch centre mostly empty

The Whitehorse emergency response centre at the top of Two Mile Hill opened a year ago with ambulance bays and offices, but space for a new dispatch call centre in the building still sits largely empty.

In one corner of the room a few computers were set up this fall as an emergency back up dispatch system. The room is also used occasionally for training.

Ben Yu Schott, in the Yukon government's community services department, says it's looking into the possibility of an integrated dispatch centre for the space, but there's no fixed date.  

"So when this building was designed, it was designed with the future in mind and one of the possible scenarios in the future was to have dispatch services moved up to this building," Yu Schott says.

David Gilbert, with the Yukon RCMP, who's building houses the 911 dispatch centre, says they're still in discussions with territorial government about moving to the new building.

"We`ve determined that yeah, it`s certainly a possibility but we have to work out the details," Gilbert says.

Liberal MLA leader Sandy Silver says the Yukon Party government should have done a needs assessment before construction. 

"My gut says this is poor fiscal mismanagement you know, they don't have a plan for this space," Silver say. 

He says the infrastructure in the current Emergency Medical Services call centre, adjacent to the Whitehorse hospital, is crumbling.