A Canadian Chief’s Perspective The Fire Service A Canadian Chief’s Perspective

Click to add title Poplation of 36.7 million 9.9 million squared km Share a border with the US that is over 8,800 km long 80% live in urbanized area

One of 13 provinces and territories Most populated province 14.28 million Area of 1 million square kms

Greater Toronto Area 7, 124 square km Population of 6.4 million people or 17% of the entire country

The City of Mississauga Population of 750,000 292 sq km Served by a staff of 713 in Fire & Emergency Services 20 stations, shared communications with Brampton Fire Fire Suppression, Fire Prevention, Training, Mechanical, Emergency Management Insert Map of Mississauga

Ontario Authority under the Fire Protection and Prevention Act Municipal responsibilities 2 (1)  Every municipality shall, (a) establish a program in the municipality which must include public education with respect to fire safety and certain components of fire prevention; and (b) provide such other fire protection services as it determines may be necessary in accordance with its needs and circumstances. Methods of providing services (2)  In discharging its responsibilities under subsection (1), a municipality shall, (a) appoint a community fire safety officer or a community fire safety team; or (b) establish a fire department. 441 Fire Services in Ontario – All at the lower level or municipal level of government 32 are completely full time 214 composite 195 fully volunteer (paid on call) EMS not part of our mandate

3 lines of Defense

What makes us tick Driven by NFPA standards Response standards - NFPA 1710 Professional standards- NFPA 1001- 1061 Ontario Fire Code Regulations Inspections and Enforcement Municipal Gov’ts set levels of service Est and Reg bylaws

Unionized Workforce 11000 full-time unionized staff A number of volunteer departments are unionized Exclusions Over 11,000 fulltime staff are unionized – ie 713 staff in Mississauga but on 14 non-unionized

The New Paradigm Escalating Costs with a government wanting to reduce Labour rewards escalating (1st class ff is $143,000 all in) Fire incidents not changing and dollar losses increasing Still no working smoke alarms in 50 % of homes The need for a more inclusive and diverse workforce

FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY PUBLIC SAFETY FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY BALANCE

Time to reset Know your risks in your community Develop a risk mitigation plan Think out side the box Integrate all three lines of defense Pub Ed, Code enforcement, Emergency Response More emphasis on the first 2-lines Be deliberate

Public Education Be targeted and aggressive Generalize when appropriate but: Know your risks Develop key programs Build tools Use all your staff to delivery messages Capture the data (who, what when) and compare year over year on fire data for success.

Code Enforcement Be proactive Ensure that the owners and property managers know responsibilities Into every building annually or every two years Work with reps but don’t be afraid to order/ charge or fine Don’t be sorry for enforcing safety requirements

Emergency Response Establish appropriate benchmarks for response times How are you deploying resources? Health and Safety is maintained It is the third line of defense “No pride in fighting a fire that could have been prevented”

Diversity Cultural shifts to attract and retain Only 3-5% avg female in suppression Not a recruitment issue More focus on attraction of qualified candidates Greater need to look at the entire cultural diversity of municipality and department

Mental Health Growing concern PTSD and Occupational Stress Injuries PTSD Prevention Plan – Gov’t Building resiliency Right benefit at the right time PEER Teams – grass routes Other programming

End of Day Dedicated staff Focused and deliberate change Funding issues Strong labour unions Time for change is now Not one size fits all.