Volunteers with regional district fire departments on the Coast and their supporters are sounding the alarm that it is time to provide compensation to those first responders.
Since January, over 80 comments and positive reactions have amassed in response to a posting on the Everything Sunshine Coast and Halfmoon Bay BC Everything Facebook pages about exploring a “paid on call” (POC) system for departments under the jurisdiction of the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD).
POC systems for firefighters exist in other community fire departments throughout the province. Included in those are ones under the jurisdiction of regional districts in the North and Central Okanagan, North Rockies and Columbia Shuswap. Documentation from the Regional District of North Okanagan describes their POC practice, noting that “Paid-on-call firefighters are paid for emergency/response calls hours, training hours and routine equipment maintenance-type time. Remuneration may be made for selected extra training and duties”.
One volunteer's view
A volunteer for over three years with the Halfmoon Bay Volunteer Fire Department, Alex Hart spoke with Coast Reporter on March 5 to share his views on the importance of compensating fire fighters. Stating he did not join the department “to make money” he noted that he incurs costs to be part of the service that he has to “pay out of pocket”. While to date, those have not been high enough to dissuade him from volunteering, his view is that they can have a chilling effect when someone, especially younger individuals, look at joining the department. He said he would like to see the SCRD put “some real skin in the game” when it comes to supporting the members of the fire departments under its authority, and that a POC system is one way that could be done.
The SCRD does pay for benefit packages for department volunteers, which offer extended medical and dental coverage. Hart said he is grateful that form of compensation is in place. He also remarked those benefits could be improved upon.
“The volunteer departments have fallen vastly short when it comes to coverage that addresses post traumatic stress syndrome. We get to see the same type of stressful things that career firefighters do, just not on the same frequency, but typically we often know the people who we are helping and that’s another stressor,” Hart said.
He stated compensation for counselling services that is included in SCRD benefits for volunteer fire fighters covers only ‘a couple’ of visits to a therapy professional. That, in his view, may not be enough to help a first responder who has been traumatized when dealing with “the things we can’t unsee” during an emergency incident like a motor vehicle crash or a residential structure fire.
SCRD review coming this year
In its 2024 budget, the SCRD funded a 12-month temporary amendment to the firefighter compensation model for the Gibsons and District, xwesam/Roberts Creek, Halfmoon Bay and Egmont fire departments. The board directed staff to deploy spending of $78,000 from property taxes from the affected areas for that purpose, in consultation with volunteer firefighters.
According to Chief Ryan Daley of the Halfmoon Bay department, that consultation has started. He told Coast Reporter he was excited with that progress on what he sees as a “very important subject”.
The board also requested a report and an “action plan” on firefighter compensation options come forward before 2025 budget deliberations, which are anticipated to start in the final months of 2024. In a motion approved at its Feb 8 meeting the “action plan” is to include “engagement with volunteer firefighters around recognition and compensation” and “raising public awareness of the contributions made by volunteer firefighters”. To pay for that effort, the SCRD will take $15,000 from operating reserves.
