By Jill Sperling

KSAR disappointed in absence of funding for search teams in provincial budget

Feb 26, 2019 | 2:42 PM

KAMLOOPS — The volunteer manager of Kamloops Search and Rescue says he’s disappointed in the absence of funding in the Provincial Budget for SAR teams. 

Kamloops Search and Rescue had come to depend on funding allocated by the previous government in order to facilitate training for numerous disciplines, such as swift water rescue, canine, and rope rescue. 

Without provincial funding, Search Manager Alan Hobler says the future of those disciplines are uncertain. 

“Personally, it sort of feels like to us that we were forgotten about in this last budget,” he said. “I hope that isn’t the case, I hope there’s another plan in place. But ultimately, we need to be able to plan long term so we can provide for all of our basic costs and our specialty costs as well.”

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Hobler says he would love to see a permanent line item in the provincial budget for search and rescue teams. 

He adds these teams have become an invaluable resource in the communities they are in. 

“You know we used to be sort of rag-tag teams and in the last 10 to 20 years we’ve become professional organizations that have specialty teams that require a lot of training and a lot of specialty equipment and we’ve become very dependent on our funding sources to help provide those,” Hobler said. 

“This alternate funding that the previous government was providing for us was quite substantial and helped us significantly.”