Arbitrator orders Greater Sudbury to hire more full-time firefighters for the Valley

An arbitrator is ordering Greater Sudbury to hire more full-time firefighters to serve the Valley East area of the city.

This had been proposed in the controversial fire optimization plan three years ago.

The arbitrator suggests that city council rejected the plan in 2017 for political reasons and didn't consider the safety of firefighters.

The decision grants the Sudbury Professional Firefighters Association's request that there be four full-time firefighters on shift at all times at the station in Val Therese, which is the standard at the other full-time firehalls in the city.

Currently, there are usually only two full-timers on the job in the Valley, working along side volunteer firefighters.

"Other municipalities both large and much smaller have not waited for a tragic incident or close call before ensuring that career firefighters first assemble with a minimum sized crew of four," reads the report.

In making its decision, the arbitration board considered the city's optimization report from 2017, which proposed an overhaul of the fire department including the hiring of full-time firefighters to serve all rural and suburban parts of the city traditionally covered by volunteer fire brigades.

The author of that report, former fire chief Trevor Bain, was also called as an expert witness. He faced much of the public uproar over the optimization report three years ago and was fired by the city shortly after it was alleged he had been harassed by two city councillors over the issue.

In April 2017, after several raucous public meetings on the proposed plan, Sudbury city council voted unanimously not to receive the optimization report, which the arbitration board called "an apparent eleventh-hour decision in a charged political climate."

"There is no evidence that council ever considered any aspect of the health and safety question at issue in this arbitration," the report reads.

"The City's position in this case conflicts with the core of the expert evidence that we have accepted. It runs straight into the well-informed 'evidence based' recommendation of its own recent senior leadership team. It runs counter to the 'best practice' approach taken across North America for career personnel and the one adopted by virtually every comparable municipality in the province."

The arbitrator notes that the city's position in this case is contrary to what its own senior staff were arguing just a few years ago in that rejected optimization report. 

"We've always felt that our members riding two on a truck out there, puts them in a very precarious situation in many ways," says firefighter association president Kris Volpel.

Deputy fire chief Jesse Oshell was called as a witness for the city and he had worked on the optimization report, which he testified was not "fully grasped" by most Sudburians.

He also told the arbitration board how he would feel if he was one of only two firefighters to arrive at a house fire where someone might be trapped inside.

"I would not want to be that officer….it would be very difficult. I would not want this to be on them or me," Oshell told the board. "They would have to decide about the risk with the resources in front of them. I can't speak for anyone other than me. It would not be a good day."

The city told the arbitrators that this situation was unlikely to happen to firefighters responding from the Valley station, but the association argued that "It only takes one call in unsafe circumstances to kill a firefighter."

City representatives also argued that "if staffing at Val Therese is unsafe, then staffing at the other 19 volunteer fire stations in Sudbury must also be unsafe."

The arbitration board was told the city would need to hire ten new full-time firefighters to meet the association's request at an annual cost of $1.3 million.

But when asked for comment by CBC, the city says it is still reviewing the decision and will bring "options" to city council in the near future.

Some Sudbury city councillors, in particular Ward 2's Michael Vagnini, have warned against some ideas from the optimization report coming back on the table. 

"You know there's certain things that may keep appearing one way or another, because the report was very thorough and identified a lot of shortcomings and things to address in the fire service," says Volpel. 

"They don't go away I think just because perhaps you decided you didn't want to receive the report."