CFN – It looks like the city of Cornwall Ontario may have set a record with 28 recommendations that will be reviewed at City Council tonight.
Full
The Ontario Fire Marshall’s office has completed a review of the Cornwall Fire Service making twenty-eight recommendations that will be presented to Cornwall City Council tonight. The review identifies issues in the delivery of Fire Prevention responsibilities in addition to important health and safety issues for Cornwall’s residents. The review concludes, in part:
“This review has determined that the City of Cornwall is not meeting minimum legislated requirements. It identifies inconsistencies and deficiencies in the delivery of fire protection services in the City of Cornwall.” It goes on to state: “Reducing or eliminating deficiencies will improve the safety of the public and front line fire service personnel, and may reduce municipal liability.”
Cornwall Professional Fire Fighters Association President Bruce Donig said his members fully endorse the review’s conclusions. “The review makes clear what fire fighters in Cornwall have been saying for years, there are significant public and fire fighter safety issues in the Cornwall Fire Service that need to be addressed”
Donig went on to say “We are encouraged that the report concludes that fire fighters require more training, we have been asking for more training for years. Imagine a workplace where the employees want more training but don’t receive it from their employer.”
President Donig concludes, “I encourage Council to endorse the review, we need to focus on these problems and deliver the fire service that the residents of Cornwall expect, and are paying for. The Cornwall Fire Service fails to meet the requirements of Council’s own Bylaws – there is extensive work to be done.”
This review has determined that the City of Cornwall is not meeting minimum legislated requirements. It identifies inconsistencies and deficiencies in the delivery of fire protection services in the City of Cornwall.
and
….we have been asking for more training for years. Imagine a workplace where the employees want more training but don’t receive it from their employer.
We will be following up on this story shortly.
You can lay this one directly on the Mayor/City Council’s doorstep!
Imagine! The agency who is very particular with businesses regarding fire safety, and do not hesitate to threaten prosecution for the tiniest fire violation, yet they have 28!! Something is not right here. They should not be allowed to get away with it!
I think we will find out that playing hockey does not a good fire department make.
Judy just to point out these are recommendations and not violations.
Burn baby burn! Not surprising in this town….but hey we have one he’ll of a hockey rink and some bilingual signs.
Do your job council!
Perhaps it is time that we have a provincial firefighters force, much like the OPP. That way, no municipality would have to have “retention pay”, as firefighters could apply for transfers much as the OPP officers do. It would also reduce costs to the municipality when it comes to contract talks, among other things. Think of the economy of scale savings that could be made when it comes training, hiring (local nepotism aside), equipping, and the associated reduction in duplication of services with respect to administration, not to mention the standardization of policies and procedures. Cornwall could even champion the idea of being the provincial headquarters for such an organization, much as Orillia (population 30,586 at last count) does for the OPP. The NAV Centre could surely be used for such a facility, if they were amenable to sharing some of their space or land, otherwise the municipality could use some of its industrial land.
Trying to think outside of the box in a positive manner.
Just a thought………
The report says 28 recommendations but I only count 22. It sounds a lot like people aren’t doing their jobs that they get paid quite well for, we can sit here and blame the city and council but its the department staff that are not fulfilling their duties from the Chief right down to the guy at the end of the hose. I also like that the association is quick to hit on we need more training and we’ve been asking for it, but why aren’t they’re member doing it? The association represents all members of the department not including the Chiefs. The association should be calling on its own members to pick up their boots and fix the issues these ‘recommendations’ have brought forth.
The OFM clearly states it is up to the municipality to determine the level of service that is provided. I think it’s time to take a look at that and scale back concentrating more on preventing and education and other legislative requirements. The fire service is already straining the budget with unfair arbitration awards and very well paid employees. City council can’t seem to combat cutting fire budget so let’s start scaling back services before its too late and the entire budget goes to the fire dept. The most interesting fact I found was they only responded to 1357 calls in a whole year, that’s less than 4 calls in a 24 hr period yet we have 60 some personnel on staff…..and a lot of those were false alarm calls so although they required a response and quickly dissolved into nothing. According to Cornwall website Cornwall Community Police responded to 18,000 requests for service and Cornwall SDG Paramedics responded to over 13,000 calls.
John Horrow, you said it 100% correct, now who is stealing time here and could also be fired?? Time to change how the FD is operating, time to cut staff, quick to pass blame but really, more time spent taking your big fancy fire trucks to get groceries.
Hey I see the CAO made a comment in Seaway News about the fired 5.
What do you expect when certain families get priority over other people to be hired and then they get caught goofing off. Nice news that reflect about Cornwall. Cornwall will never change until the entire population changes and as long as people do not change nothing ever will be better.