A group of Beaver Lake area residents is still pushing for city council action to improve volunteer firefighter recruitment, training and retention.
Several members of the Beaver Lake Fire and Services Committee attended the Dec. 5 city council meeting in a show of solidarity for their cause, and left city hall disappointed.
Although Ward 2 Coun. Michael Vagnini and Ward 7 Coun. Natalie Labbée both asked various questions and lamented the city’s limited training and recruitment opportunities for volunteer firefighters, neither elected official tabled a motion for the city to do anything about it.
Area residents want action, and they want it now, Beaver Lake Fire Services Committee member Brenda Salo told Sudbury.com after the meeting.
“They're negotiating the 2024 budget, and guess what? There's not a thing in it that expands volunteer firefighter recruiting or training,” she said. “Nothing’s there.”
The city’s elected officials will begin budget deliberations on Dec. 12, and continue on Dec. 18 and 19, by which time it is anticipated they will have approved a 2024-25 budget.
Greater Sudbury Fire Services has proposed two business cases requesting additional staff members, including one pushing for the hiring of eight additional full-time firefighters and one requesting two full-time training officers.
Neither business case would directly or immediately impact communities served by volunteer departments.
The two additional full-time training officers would ensure the department has the right balance of employees to maintain required service levels, Deputy Chief Jesse Oshell told Sudbury.com last month, describing existing staff as overworked.
“I think it’s reasonable to say we could do a bit more accommodation (for volunteer firefighters’ training) in the future, but to a point,” he said, clarifying that the city is still playing catch-up to meet new provincially mandated training requirements, which bumped minimum training from 40 hours to 280 over the course of two years.
The city’s current training regiment for volunteer members is not adequate, said Salo, whose group is pushing for a volunteer firefighter intake process more frequent than once per year and greater flexibility when it comes to when new hires can undergo training.
As it stands, volunteer firefighter recruits have a choice of between two days for each monthly training module, and must complete the modules in order because each session builds upon the previous one. Limited accommodations are made for those who miss a session, which typically means their accreditation to work as a firefighter is pushed back a year.
Greater Sudbury Fire Services has been looking into partnering with Cambrian College to run an additional training program during weekday evenings to accommodate more prospective members, but this hasn’t come to fruition yet.
With additional recruitment and training efforts requiring accompanying funding, Salo’s group is pushing for a member of city council to table a motion for the city to take action.
There has been enough talk, she said, advocating for immediate action.
“If we need to go campaigning for $100,000, tell us what we need to know,” Salo said.
The Beaver Lake station is of particular concern, she said, noting that city council approved for it to remain open alongside the Skead station for one year from June 27, 2023, by which time both stations are required to be staffed to the “average number of volunteers for all stations” to remain open into the long term.
Both stations were previously slated to close, according to the city’s proposed modernization plan for emergency services infrastructure, which city council voted to amend.
The Beaver Lake station currently has three members, and the 2023 intake resulted in five people being offered volunteer firefighter positions at Beaver Lake.
One person dropped out due to an inability to make it out to all of the required training sessions, Salo said, which brings this year’s intake to four members and Beaver Lake’s new overall total to eight, if all of this year’s newcomers were to carry through to the end.
Although it’s unclear what the average number of volunteers for all stations will be by that time, the city’s service level goal is at least 15 members.
With five additional prospective recruits waiting in the wings for next year’s intake, Salo said she’s confident that with more intakes and greater flexibility in training opportunities, they could bring the station up to 15 members by the target date of July 27, 2024.
But, she said, this would require the will of city council to spend additional money on training resources, which a lack of motions to date suggests does not exist.
According to Deputy Chief Nathan Melin’s latest report, there were 91 applicants on file since the 2022 recruitment process, of whom the city ended up giving job offers to 41.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
