The president of the Halifax firefighters union is calling for a complete leadership change at the municipal firefighting department, following years of what he says are failures in the response to allegations of abuse within the fire service.
Brendan Meagher, president of Halifax Professional Firefighters, says union members have lost faith in leadership because of the department’s long-standing attitude of indifference. The union has been going public for several weeks with its concerns.
Meagher says he recently sat in on close to a dozen interviews with firefighters who shared their concerns with an investigator mandated by the city to assess the workplace culture at the department and produce a report.
“I heard some really impactful statements,” he said about the department’s culture. “Like, ‘this has taken the joy out of my life,’ or ‘this is ruining my family life.’ I saw number of people in tears describing their experiences …. And when the report came back, it was rinsed of all those comments.”
He says leadership has failed to properly respond to reports of racist, misogynistic and homophobic behaviour. One particularly egregious example, he said, occurred earlier this year when two women reported three separate incidents of abuse from the same manager.
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In all three cases, the manager “walked up behind them, grabbed the back of their chair, dumped them on the floor, and said ‘you’re sitting in my chair.’”
That manager, Meagher said, no longer works for the fire department. But that resolution was only reached after the union escalated the situation.
In addition, the union says leadership has failed to adequately prepare for the rise in the number of wildfires every season; hasn’t delivered promised training; and has lengthened the period of time firefighters must actively fight a fire before they can take a break.
Meagher says staffing levels have fallen precipitously over the past three decades. “For a highrise, something over seven floors, your minimum effective response is 43 firefighters in 11 minutes. We send 14 people to what the industry standard says calls for 43.”
He cites issues like ill-equipped medical kits, saying firefighters have asked for years for epinephrine autoinjectors — which treat anaphylaxis shock — but were told the cost was too high.
“We googled them, and they’re about $120 at Lawton’s. To put them on 50 trucks would be under $6,000 a year in a $90-million budget,” Meagher says. “We don’t want our members to show up and watch people suffocate when we could administer something that you give a schoolchild to do themselves.”
Now, the union says it’s time for a regime change.
Last week, fire Chief Ken Stuebing announced his retirement. Stuebing’s last day will be Dec. 1.
It’s unclear if Stuebing’s decision was impacted by the calls from the union. However, Meagher says the issues go beyond one person.
“We are concerned the problem remains,” Meagher says.
Bill Moore, Halifax’s commissioner of public safety, will lead a national search for a new fire chief. In a statement, Moore says he’s been made aware of the concerns raised by union leadership and is reviewing them. He said he is working with the union and the department “to gather relevant information regarding these issues,” adding that he’ll have more to say when “a path forward has been determined.”
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