Background 

It is well known that firefighting is a dangerous occupation and that fire fighters have among the highest rates of occupational injuries of any profession. It has also become well known that due to the toxic chemicals to which fire fighters are routinely exposed in the course of their duties, professional fire fighters also suffer from serious occupational diseases, including heart disease, and most commonly, cancer.

Since 2002, provincial governments across Canada have formally recognized links between cancer and firefighting and have enacted ‘presumptive legislation’ that presumes, for the purpose of worker’s compensation benefits and support, that certain cancers are caused by a fire fighter’s occupation if they have worked a certain number of years on the job.

Presumptive legislation acknowledges that cancer is an epidemic in the fire service. In the 10-year period of 2012 to 2021, a total of 420 full-time fire fighters died in the line of duty from recognized occupational cancers in Canada. Sadly, this number includes 14 Saskatchewan fire fighters.

In Saskatchewan, the provincial government introduced amendments to the Workers Compensation Act on in 2003 giving presumptive status to several types of cancers, heart injuries and psychological injuries among professional fire fighters and has expanded that coverage several times. The SPFFPA remains grateful to the Government of Saskatchewan for these protections, which specify that fire fighters with the required number of years on the job are currently covered for brain, bladder, kidney, colorectal, ureter, lung, esophageal, testicular, prostate, skin, cervical, ovarian, and breast cancers, as well as multiple myeloma, leukemia and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Recently, several jurisdictions in Canada updated their list of presumptive coverage for fire fighters to include two new cancers – thyroid cancer and pancreatic cancer – in light of evidence that fire fighters are at an increased risk of these cancers as a result of their occupation. Meanwhile, five jurisdictions – B.C., Manitoba, Ontario, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador include penile cancer coverage in their presumptive regimes. These provinces now protect their fire fighters from 19 forms of cancer which is the current benchmark in Canada.

Saskatchewan’s professional fire fighters face the same wide variety of hazards and exposures to the same kinds of toxins while protecting their fellow citizens. As a result, they’re equally at risk of contracting thyroid, pancreatic and penile cancers, and equally deserving of worker’s compensation benefits.

It is a fact that, even with the best respiratory practices and protective equipment, fire fighter exposures will continue to occur due to absorption through the skin. The absorption rate of toxic chemicals is greatly increased by the heat that fire fighters are working under during fire suppression activities. The concentration of chemicals in today’s building materials and home contents is much higher than in the past due to increased use of composite materials and chemical additives.                                                                                              

Epidemiological, medical and scientific studies conclusively demonstrate an increased rate of diseases such as cancer in the firefighter population versus the general population. These studies show a statistically significant increase that cannot be explained by chance alone. Medical evidence shows that fire fighters have anywhere from two to four times the risk of cancers compared to the general population. If you factor in the “healthy worker effect,” which means fire fighters are a healthier study group compared to the general public, the rates are likely even higher.

Unlike other occupational groups, fire fighters cannot refuse to work under dangerous and hazardous conditions. As such, fire fighters are exposed to a toxic soup of potential carcinogens. From smoke, fire fighters are exposed to benzene; hydrogen chloride; polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs); and chlorine among other chemicals. From building materials, firefighters are exposed to asbestos and lead, while diesel exhaust exposures include polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and other dangers.

Fire fighters are never exposed to one chemical compound alone. The health hazards of multiple carcinogenic exposures are greater than the sum of individual exposures. The proliferation of synthetic substances in the marketplace means that fire fighters are increasingly exposed to new and multiple hazards and increased exposure means a higher likelihood of contracting cancer. There are over 70 million different and unknown chemical combinations that fire fighters can be exposed to over the course of their lives. 

SPFFA Arguments

• Cancer is an epidemic in the fire service. In the ten-year period of 2012-2021, a total of 420 Canadian fire fighters have died from recognized occupational cancers including 14 from Saskatchewan.

• Environmental factors have proven to be the major causes for many cancers including these four. Fire fighters cannot avoid their repeated exposure to these carcinogens. Refusing unsafe work is not an option for fire fighters.

• Five Canadian provinces have responded to evidence and have recently presumed thyroid, pancreatic and penile cancers as occupational in fire fighters for the purpose of workers compensation benefits and established a national benchmark of 19 cancers in their presumptive regimes.

• Saskatchewan’s professional fire fighters face the same hazards as those in other provinces and territories and are equally deserving of compensation for occupational illnesses.

• Removing the burden of establishing that a certain cancer was contracted in the workplace would allow the fire fighter to focus on treatments and recovery.

SPFFPA Position

The SPFFPA calls on the Government of Saskatchewan to join five other Canadian jurisdictions that recognize the benchmark of 19 cancers as occupational in fire fighters and to amend the Worker Compensation Act to include thyroid, pancreatic and penile cancers.

Background 

There is a canary in the coal mine situation going on right now with EMS across Canada. Jurisdictions such as British Columbia EMS, Alberta EMS and Ontario are showing what inattention to their respective systems turns into and it isn’t very good. It seems BC, AB and ONT. have entered into comprehensive stakeholder meetings along with immediate measures to combat their crumbling EMS systems. When we highlight system issues there or here it's not necessarily even just with working conditions or safety of paramedics it's more the trickle down effect it all has on the end user...the patients or clients. Saskatchewan is showing signs that we are on the same path as other jurisdictions such as ambulance offload delays and the toll they are taking.

The request for legislation pertaining to the Ambulance or Paramedics is not a new one as other entities have been discussing it since 2010, after the EMS Review of 2009 where it was recommended that changes need to come to ground EMS. The only real updates that have come for the profession are with the Paramedic Act (2007) which gave us the Saskatchewan College of Paramedics, in what was a huge step forward for the profession. There are significant safety concerns on the frontlines for paramedics whether it be driving old ambulances with over 300,000 km, no regulation on snow tires, no rules around meal breaks and into working hours with no limits on how long you can be on shift. These are just some of the issues that need to be addressed to better care for paramedics and at the same time patients being treated with old equipment and worn out paramedics. The profession itself needs to move forward to attract and retain good professionals as well as offer a whole new adaptable level of medicine to the public that is greatly needed now and moving forward.                                                               

SPFFPA Arguments

• The Ambulance Act and Regulations (1989) are an outdated piece of legislation that would benefit the Paramedicine profession in its opening and consultation to improve it.

• Recruitment and retention initiatives are a growing concern as we see a decline of students graduating actually entering into the workforce. As well as seasoned paramedics moving to other education or jobs. Thus leaving a void which is being band-aided by the increased use of medical first responders in some locations.

• Safety of paramedics and those that share the road with them would be greatly improved to have guidance over items such as hours of work (fatigue management), age of ambulances, snow tires and other equipment.

• The need for relevant acts to be opened in order to include parameters that has medicine moving forward instead of stuck in the past. Options such as transporting patients to medical clinics rather than just hospitals. Input and ability to pivot towards emerging fields of treatment such as Community Paramedicine.

• Numerous stakeholders such as those in the Saskatchewan Health Authority, Private Ambulance operators, Saskatoon Paramedics Association and a growing voice of frontline paramedics support the opening of these Acts and Regulations.

• The Health and wellness of paramedics needs to be seen as a priority moving forward to allow them the same rights and privileges of other similar professions in regards to working hours or conditions. 

SPFFPA Position

The professional fire fighters of this province continue to offer to help improve our EMS system. When looking for ways to improve EMS delivery in Saskatchewan now, the SPFFPA urges the Government of Saskatchewan to recognize the need to address outdated pieces of Legislation (Ambulance Act and Regulations) when updates could be used to catapult Paramedicine forward to better serve the citizens of Saskatchewan.

Background

Firefighting is a critically-important and lifesaving service. No one wants to see a situation where fire fighters are unavailable to respond to an emergency for any reason, especially one that could be avoided such as a labour dispute. Fire fighter unions and management agree that strike and other job actions cannot be part of the labour/management relationship. As evidence of that commitment, Saskatchewan fire fighters have kept ‘no strike’ clauses in their own constitutions for years. 

Until the passing of Bill 85 in 2014, the Saskatchewan Employment Act, Saskatchewan’s unionized fire fighters, like their fellow fire fighters in eight other provinces and the federal sector, had legislation in place which provided for a system of mandatory binding arbitration for resolving specific issues that could not be agreed on at the bargaining table. With the passing of Bill 85, that balanced and fair approach to settling the collective agreement has been unilaterally stripped away from half of the fire fighter unions in the province without any justification. 

Prior to Bill 85, the process for collective bargaining and binding arbitration for Saskatchewan’s full-time fire fighters was addressed in Section 9 of the Fire Departments Platoon Act. It allowed the union or the city to request binding arbitration when negotiations failed. The purpose of the arbitration system is to replicate what would have happened if the bargaining process had been successful. An independent arbitration panel of three people, agreed on jointly by the employer and the union, heard evidence from each side and looks at comparable conditions in awarding contract items in dispute. Typically, when the arbitration system is used, arbitration boards are asked to rule on only a small number of issues that are in dispute, not an entire contract.

Section 3 of the Fire Departments Platoon Act set out an exception stating that fire fighter unions in cities with a population of less than 10,000 did not have access to binding arbitration. Practically, this affected only one of the province’s eight IAFF locals; Weyburn. Their only option in the event that bargaining did not produce a collective agreement was to serve strike notice, something they never chose to do.

For decades, the mandatory binding arbitration process specified in the Fire Departments Platoon Act for the other seven IAFF locals provided labour stability for the fire service within the province. An analysis of fire fighter collective agreements in Saskatchewan from 1969 to today demonstrates that 146 of 198 – or 74 per cent – were freely negotiated. It is clear that the framework under the Fire Departments Platoon Act created a bargaining atmosphere that encouraged the parties to find resolve. Under this legislation, there were no work stoppages and fire fighters were able to strive for fair working conditions without being placed in the extremely difficult position of considering withdrawing their services and jeopardizing public safety as their only other option.

All of that has now been put in jeopardy with the passing of Bill 85. While major components of the Fire Departments Platoon Act were incorporated into Bill 85’s Part VI – Division 15 (which is the section dealing specifically with fire fighter collective bargaining), the government, without any known stakeholder consultation, request by municipalities or rationale, decided in the final stages of the legislative process to raise the population threshold from 10,000 to 15,000 and ultimately to 20,000.                                                                      

As a result, fire fighters in Weyburn, Yorkton, North Battleford and Swift Current – who are already among the lowest-paid professional fire fighters in Canada - will not be able to apply for interest arbitration in the same manner as their fellow fire fighters in Regina, Saskatoon, Moose Jaw and Prince Albert. This is also in spite of the fact that only Yorkton fire fighters have ever utilized interest arbitration; it cannot be argued there was abuse of the existing system. It is also important to point out that no other provincial jurisdiction sets a population threshold for being able to access interest arbitration. 

Instead of fixing the obvious unfairness of such a roadblock, the government has instead put forward a proposed framework for resolving collective bargaining disputes for these four smallest fire fighter locals that can only be described as misguided, one-sided and completely lacking balance and an overall sense of fairness. For example, it dictates that these locals would have to involve the Labour Relations Board in an application for “minimal impairment,” leading potentially to final offer selection (FOS) – a “winner take all” approach where one side’s proposal is accepted in its entirety - ultimately being utilized to settle the collective agreement. There is no other Canadian jurisdiction with International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) locals where fire fighters have mandatory FOS to settle the contract except BC, but in BC it is not mandatory, but rather a discretionary option for the Minister – an option that has not been acted on for at least the last 30 years. It makes no sense for Saskatchewan to impose a resolution process that has no history in the Canadian fire service.

Final Offer Selection fails to replicate collective bargaining. It takes compromise out of the equation and ultimately leads to bad collective agreements, as a selected proposal’s is accepted in its entirety, including not only its good provisions but its bad ones as well.

SPFFPA Position

Bill 85 upset a binding arbitration process for fire fighters that provided labour stability in Saskatchewan for decades. It imposed a harsh and unfair constraint on the ability of the province’s four smallest fire fighter local unions to strive for fair working conditions, without any rationale. It was a harsh solution to a problem that did not exist, and it stands to drive down the wages of the lowest-paid fire fighters in the province – also some of the lowest paid fire fighters in Canada – despite the fact that they risk their lives and their safety on behalf of their fellow citizens every day just like fire fighters everywhere else. A fire fighter should not be treated differently in terms of their ability to bargain for fair wages and working conditions simply due to the size of their municipality.

What We Ask

The Saskatchewan Professional Fire Fighters and Paramedics Association urges the Saskatchewan Government to reconsider revoking access to interest arbitration the province’s four smallest fire fighter locals, for example by restoring the previous population threshold of 10,000. We urge members of the Legislature to help restore fairness by writing to Labour Minister Don Morgan and demanding that all of the full-time fire fighters who risk their lives protecting the people of Saskatchewan be afforded the same ability to achieve fair working conditions as other full-time fire fighters everywhere else in Canada.