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By Ian Gustafson

EHS

Province extends deadline for City of Red Deer to decide future of ambulance services

Mar 24, 2026 | 5:23 PM

The City of Red Deer has received an extension from Alberta’s Emergency Health Services (EHS) to decide whether they’ll match EHS’s costs in providing ambulance services in the community or pay the difference to continue to be the contracted service provider.

City Manager Tara Lodewyk explained at Tuesday’s regular city council meeting that after raising concerns to EHS through multiple meetings, they’ve extended the decision from March 31 to April 30.

Lodewyk said the city had an additional meeting with EHS administration on Monday, who are looking to potentially extend the deadline even further to May 30.

“The extension of the time to make this decision has become less of a contentious point,” she said. “The meeting yesterday had much more of a collaborative feeling than the initial meeting we had on March 13.”

She said the city felt two weeks felt too rushed and that even the April 30 deadline would be a tight turnaround.

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“We need the extra time because this is a decision of critical importance to our community as well as to our staff,” Lodewyk said. “We need that time to understand the impacts on operations, staff, collective agreements, citizens, and our overall city budget. We need the time to do that due diligence for council to make an informed decision, and we owe that to our community.”

Lodewyk said they’re working on the details and plan to get council the needed information by the end of April.

This comes after EHS asked the City of Red Deer, in a letter on March 13, to make a decision by the end of March on whether to get rid of its integrated fire and ambulance service that has been in place for 60 years.

More specifically, they were asked to match the EHS benchmark costs with the difference in any cost to come from Red Deer taxpayers or to not deliver the ambulance service, and EHS would then go out for a request for proposal.

Administration felt the approximate two-week deadline was unnecessarily rushed and that, without proper analysis and additional details, it put the city in a difficult position to respond.

They felt that prior to asking council to decide on the future of the service delivery model, administration still needs to consider impacts such as financial implications on current and future operating budgets, the impacts to the 70 employees that provide this service, the impact to the services received by Red Deerians and the impact to the fire service with elimination of the integrated model.

However, the extension has now provided the city with some extra time.

On Tuesday, council was asked to approve a resolution that council authorize Mayor Cindy Jefferies to collaborate with other mayors representing integrated service delivery models in preparing and sending a joint letter to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Services, Mike Ellis.

As a result, the resolution was approved unanimously.

For background, the City of Red Deer has a contract with the province to deliver ground ambulance services in Red Deer, which includes eight ambulances.

They deliver it through an integrated model, and all of the city’s firefighters are also paramedics, who can serve on either a fire apparatus or an ambulance. There are life support capabilities on the fire engines as well as the ambulances.

In total, there are only seven other municipalities in the province that deliver this kind of model. This includes Red Deer, Leduc, St. Albert, Lethbridge, Strathcona County, Spruce Grove, and the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo.

The current contract to deliver the services was negotiated approximately two years ago. The term of the contract was to go until Sept. 30, 2026.

Lodewyk explained the City of Red Deer isn’t alone in this. She herself has talked with the other community CAO’s, and acting Fire Chief Curtis Schaefer also had meetings with the IAFF president that were positive as they work to understand what options lie ahead. Schaefer also met with representatives of I7 Chiefs on Thursday, March 19.

Councillor Dianne Wyntjes said in her closing comments, it’s not good form for the provincial government to request such a significant decision in a short amount of time when talking about an issue that affects Red Deerians.

“Our health seconds matter, and recognizing the past in how long it took to renew a contract and the details that go into it,” Wyntjes said.

“I think this is important, and our voices with the other integrated cities, I think, will speak to our collaboration and hopefully the provincial government will understand this is local, it matters.”

Meantime, Deputy Mayor Bruce Buruma, who held the chair for Mayor Cindy Jefferies, who was absent from the conversation, said it’s disheartening to see the way the situation is headed.

“We will continue to advocate for it, and I know that Mayor Jefferies is not here right now, but she will be a strong voice for Red Deer and the citizens,” he said.