The Halifax Professional Fire Fighters Union is praising Halifax council for taking steps to develop a long-term service and resource strategy.
The union says the service has been underfunded since amalgamation, and that it needs to keep up with significant population growth.
“I say the mountain continues to grow if we don’t continue to climb,” said Brendan Meagher, the union’s president.
“And so the deficits that we’re looking at now in our capabilities are due to the first 20 years after amalgamation of contracting our service. So it’s time to build.”
Coun. Janet Steele brought two motions to council on Tuesday to ask staff to develop a long-term strategy for Halifax Regional Fire & Emergency, noting that since she’s been on council, the department has come to budget meetings asking for more staffing and resources every year.
She hopes her motion will help with future planning.
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“This is about more predictability for council, more transparency, a little more planning ahead, and I think it gives residents a better idea of what’s coming up as well as firefighters who serve all of us,” she said.
Coun. Tony Mancini says insufficient resourcing is part of the broader issue of rapid growth in the municipality.
“We have to add to that concern of infrastructure, in my opinion, our emergency services, both police and fire,” he said.
“Do we have enough as it is right now? And fire (and) emergency (services are) a very expensive business.”
Meagher says this work is a long time coming and hopes to see a significant increase in staffing as part of the strategy, as well as improvements to firefighting training for high-rise fires.
But he warns this can’t be a one-time endeavour and will require years of work that could be potentially expensive.
“I would suggest that if a good objective look is taken at the fire service, that the economic impact of not investing properly in emergency response is potentially catastrophic,” he said.
The motion passed at council unanimously.
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