 Rural Metro owned this service for a period of a few months until it went to tender again.Then the service was owned by Eastern Medical Services (created and owned by Doug Powell, Jim McIsaac and Michel Chretien) until 2001.The Ottawa EMS-SMU came into existence on January 1, 2001, when six separate agencies providing Ambulance and Paramedic care to the then Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton were amalgamated into one service.