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Volunteer Vision: Have we reached the tipping point?

I’ve been writing Volunteer Vision for over a decade now. For this edition, I looked back on some of my earlier columns for inspiration. While reading some of my previous musings, I was struck by the notion that we will never keep up with the changing landscape of our service.

In a changing world, Canada’s volunteer fire departments are struggling to exist in their former ways as they strive to improve. We do this despite being hit with higher costs, increased service demands, changing standards and practices, and a volunteer demographic that doesn’t seem to want to volunteer much of their time anymore. The entire fire service resembles nothing of its days gone by. All the statistics prove that. 

I guess the old clichéd notion holds true: “The only thing constant is change.” Personally, I get sick of that cliché, but it is true. For those of you that like life consistent, it can be a real problem for you, and you will become one of the cliché dinosaurs. Today’s firefighter must have a mindset that change will always be — and I think it should. Yet, I meet so many that just want things to stay nice and comfortable; old ways and old means. It is almost like they are saying “I’m a dinosaur, hear me roar.”   

Chief fire officers and volunteer firefighters have always struggled financially, and unfortunately I don’t think that constant will ever change. It is not only volunteer fire departments facing financial pressures; this certainly holds true for all career departments as well. The challenges are so much more noticeable in the volunteer world because we only have bare necessities to begin with and lack personnel with the extra time to deal with it.  

No column that I ever write will magically make our fire departments cheaper to operate while becoming more efficient and improving. Good fire officers accept the fact that we try to provide an improving fire service every day to Canada’s small municipalities with meager funding. That meager funding will never meet our community’s needs and expectations. If your department does meet all the needs, please write a column, and tell us all how you did it! In the absence of that, fire chiefs and managers will continue to administer and find efficiencies with less. It is part of our job, at least it has always been part of mine.  

Sooner or later we all fear the major change that will be the death knell of our volunteer organizations because fire departments simply must exist to protect communities. Some will say that all firefighters in Canada deserve to be paid. I tend to agree but I also know that this is simply not practical in small town Canada. Will the next standard change or government regulation finally tip the volunteer fire service over the edge of no return? Early in my career I would have said no, but I can almost believe that someday we may see a national emergency fire service that covers the entire country. 

Some of our European counterparts have a national fire service, but these countries are very small geographically and much easier to provide coverage. Canada is a very large land mass, and this idea is not practical, but national support of fire services must come about in some form. But what change will make that happen? Where will it start? Maybe wildfire, climate change, and disaster management has shown the need for increased national government support more clearly now. Conversations must be had by fire service leaders to governments to map out how that will look in Canada. Leaving it to bureaucrats and politicians to propose solutions may not be in our service’s best interests and practices.

I wrote over 10 years ago on how fire departments can never be fully compliant to all the standards that are around our profession. New standards are adopted so quickly we simply cannot reset the game every time. Standards always come with increased costs, full stop. The bar gets constantly moved as we try to meet the first bar. We then strive to meet the new standards only to have the bar moved again. 

I can think of many examples of how technology has risen to meet new standards, along with the costs associated, and somehow, they are never less expensive. Wait it out a little and some costs magically come down while you are moving to catch up to a newer standard.  

As we progress our fire departments into new challenges, the volunteers either accept the new ways or move out of the cycle of service. New volunteers come in without prior knowledge of our earlier versions of the service so it’s a little easier to accept. Or is it? Maybe that’s why we are seeing a decline in volunteers. Have we gone over the tipping point already?

Vince MacKenzie is the fire chief in Grand Falls-Windsor, N.L. He is an executive member of the CAFC and current president of the Maritime Fire Chiefs Association. Email Vince at firechief@townofgfw.com.