THUNDER BAY — People risk their lives battling forest fires, but Ontario’s government is treating them unfairly.
That’s the message Thunder Bay-Superior North MPP Lise Vaugeois and others brought to a news conference Wednesday at Queen’s Park.
Wildland firefighters are not getting the “supports and respect” they deserve, said Vaugeois, who is the New Democrat critic for the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB).
In particular, firefighter Noah Freedman said, recent legislation regarding WSIB coverage for workplace-related cancer “came with a glaring condition” requiring wildland firefighters to serve for 30 years before they could qualify.
The law requires 15 years of service, but each annual fire season counts as only half a year, so a person battling forest blazes does not qualify until 30 fire seasons.
Freedman, vice-president of OPSEU Local 703, said he and his colleagues are “risking our lives not only in the moment but forever” when they fight fires, because of airborne carcinogens.
The government needs to rewrite the rules for coverage so that each wildfire season counts as a full year, he said.
Vaugeois raised the issue in Wednesday’s question period; she told Newswatch her query “got a contradictory response.”
A government member said everything’s fine, and then the labour minister said everything is “under discussion,” she said.
The MPP for Ajax, Patrice Barnes, said the Progressive Conservative government did what the preceding Liberal government didn't do: include wildland firefighters in the same category as municipal firefighters "because they earned it."
She further said the government has committed to recognizing each wildfire season as a year of service.
When an NDP colleague of Vaugeois's asked if the government will uphold its commitment to having wildfire seasons recognized as full years of service, Natural Resources Minister Graydon Smith said it would be "inappropriate to comment further."
David Piccini, the government’s labour minister, made a commitment earlier this year to help wildland firefighters by reclassifying their jobs and amending WSIB rules, she said.
So far, Vaugeois said, Piccini has done neither.
Vaugeois has criticized the government for dragging its heels on reclassifying wildland firefighters as firefighters and not fire rangers.
The reclassification is necessary for them to “receive the appropriate level of pay and benefits,” she said in a letter to Newswatch.
“Without this, the service cannot keep experienced firefighters and – as has been the case for several years – fully staff their crews,” she said.
Freedman told reporters at Wednesday’s news conference the province’s forest firefighting service is “hemorrhaging experienced staff” because “we are not treated fairly.”
Reclassification of his colleagues as firefighters would be one step in rectifying the unfairness, he said.
The province had a quiet forest fire season this year, he said, but that’s just “the luck of the draw” and Ontario might not be so fortunate next year.