Upcoming changes at the Collingwood Fire Department will impact the budget process as the Chief is set to retire and the position of Deputy Fire Chief remains open.

The Town of Collingwood presently boasts a full time fire service of 24 fire fighters. Mayor Chris Carrier said the department now operates with a four person shift, based on recent recommendations set forth by the Ontario Fire Marshall’s Office to bring the department up to provincial standards.

“One of the areas that we’re still waiting to fill is the Deputy Chief position” Carrier said, adding that the position was advertised before but was not filled as a suitable candidate was not found at the time. “Recently we’ve had the Fire Chief inform council that he is intending to retire within the next year or so, so that would mean that we are entering into the process of hiring a new Fire Chief” Carrier said, adding that the new chief would then enter into the search for a suitable candidate to fill the position of Deputy Fire Chief.

Appearing on a radio talk show on 97.7 The Beach, Mayor Carrier outlined his take of the process at hand. “It’s interesting. Fire services across Ontario, because they can’t go on strike as most bargaining or union groups can because they are an emergency service, enter a process of mediation and arbitration which is a process that allows them to go through a process where they believe that their rights are protected and the tax payers rights are protected as well, but when you look at the settlements awarded through the arbitration process I find that difficult to believe” Carrier said.

"A lot of times I think the ability to pay, I think the issue of fairness is left out of consideration for arbitration. It’s a process where I wish there was an appeal mechanism to a superior court or something to say, look, if you and I negotiated a salary last year and this year you’re getting a cost of living increase and your responsibilities and roles and duties haven’t changed, I’m not sure why you think you’re entitled to more” Carrier said.

Mayor Carrier doesn’t buy the retention pay argument whereby after working for a number of years an employee is granted a three, six or nine percent increase on the base salary. “The fire folks in the city decided that they were going to ask an arbitrator through a process to be compensated similarly to the police with retention pay in particular. That was awarded through an arbitration process and then there’s a cascade or domino effect throughout Ontario where every other fire service and police service believe that they are entitled to it” Carrier said.

Mayor Carrier praises the fire fighters and police officers, but doesn't budge on his feelings regarding the retention issue. ”There was some criticism received for publishing the report to council from the HR person describing the arbitration process that started this awful, awful component of 3-6-9 retention pay and that it was somehow changed to recognition pay. I think as municipalities we do recognize our employees at all times for their great work and let’s make it clear, our fire and police service are fantastic people” Carrier said. “What we have difficulty taking is that retention pay has somehow been changed to recognition pay and because you’re sitting on your tenure that you’re somehow entitled to more pay. I don’t agree with that principle as a private business person. Pay should be based on performance. A lot of businesses have profit sharing now. They do recognize that the employees are the strongest and most important asset in the corporation, but once again if a salary has been negotiated, and you’re happy with that salary, and you get a cost of living increase over the year and your responsibilities haven’t changed, I don’t understand the rationale that you think that you’re entitled to more pay just because you’ve been sitting there on the job a lot longer than somebody else” Carrier added.

“These are good people, people in our community, but it’s a situation where you have to differentiate between the people and the bargaining unit and the fire service unions across Ontario have been quite militant. They’re a very well organized group that continually said that they wanted to be treated differently than other employee groups and I don’t agree with that” Carrier stated. He feels that all employees are equally valuable to the corporation and should be treated equally.

Mayor Carrier also talked about the difficulty he has had with this issue appearing on a Collingwood Councilor’s blog. “The internet serves a good purpose, but the internet can also be a very poor tool for those who wish to push their own personal agendas” Carrier stated. “When you look at the blog and you see postings on the blog that talk about the mediation process that the Town of Collingwood was involved in with our fire service … well first of all, the mediation process is supposed to be confidential. Neither side is supposed to disclose what’s going on in a mediation or arbitration process. So we have where a member of council has disclosed to the public that the Town of Collingwood received, I think the term was that they had their knuckles sharply wrapped for inappropriate conduct. The inappropriate conduct was the publishing to our constituents the HR report discussing the 3-6-9 component and the five negotiations” Carrier said. First of all, the town never engaged in inappropriate behaviour. We always behaved professionally and with the utmost respect to all of our employess” Carrier said. “This was pointed out to this member of council that the Town did not receive any reprimand in any way” Carrier said, adding that the member of council in question had said that he had spoken to a member of the fire service and that the person had disclosed this information to the councilor. “First of all, once again it’s inappropriate for these two groups to be talking about something that occurred in mediation” Carrier said. “It’s completely inappropriate for either side to be talking to one another about what has occurred at this mediation process. However this fact, or this non-fact, was disclosed. I have consulted with our CAO and our Manager of HR, and Collingwood never received a reprimand in any way from the mediator or arbitrator” Carrier said. “I made the statement in the newspaper that the statement was either a lie or misrepresentation … you pick” Carrier added. “What I cannot stand for as the Mayor of Collingwood is for inappropriate comments made by members of council that are saying that we’ve acted inappropriately when it’s not true” Carrier said.