Provincial regulations for firefighting coming into effect next year will not only cost the city more money, but will make finding and keeping volunteer firefighters more difficult.
Those are some of the conclusions of a report headed to the city's community services committee next week on changes to Ontario's Fire Protection and Prevention Act.
The revamped legislation calls for mandatory training and certification for firefighters, community risk assessments and public reporting on fire responses.
Under the act, which has yet to officially pass in the Ontario Legislature, volunteers would have to have the same level of training as career firefighters, presenting a challenge to a city that relies heavily on volunteers. The Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) has raised alarms about what the new rules will mean for cities and is asking that the rules be delayed past the January 2019 deadline being proposed.
“As one of the largest composite fire services in the province, Greater Sudbury currently has over 260 volunteer firefighters, and shares AMO’s concern that if this regulation is instituted, the substantial time commitment required for certification will further erode the ability to attract, recruit and retain volunteer firefighters,” says a staff report headed to the committee Monday.
“With an annual attrition rate of 15 per cent, the service needs to recruit 40 new volunteer firefighters each year to maintain the current complement.
“Requiring a commitment of 200 hours to attain NFPA 1001 certification may be too much for volunteer firefighters to dedicate and thus could be detrimental to both the attrition and recruitment rates. These training hours are related specifically to firefighter certification and do not address additional hours required for technical rescue and corporate training (i.e. health and safety).”
In addition to the time commitment, the new rules also means hundreds of thousands of dollars must be spent training firefighters, something that wasn't included in the 2018 budget.
Councillors will review the report at their meeting April 18.
