2026 Charlottetown Municipal Election Questionnaire

Being responsive to the needs of the requests of the Charlottetown Fire Department. I am not a firefighter and I think that decisions are best when they are informed by the lived experience of those in the role.

I support a comprehensive, long-term fire-service plan that connects staffing, stations, equipment and training with Charlottetown’s growth. The plan should establish clear priorities, responsible investments and public accountability for progress.

Above everything else, I want our departments well staffed so we are not stretching our professionals thin trying to meet the city's needs with limited resources.

Immediately add four full-time professional firefighter-paramedics.

That is the single most important immediate action, but it certainly would n ot be the only one.

In fiscal 2027/2028 alone, I would also release the Fire Underwriters Survey, hold a public town hall on emergency services, fund the new industrial fire-suppression capability, get the Public Safety and Emergency Services Commission up and running, begin developing the youth firefighter program, and start implementing the longer-term staffing and emergency-readiness plans.

Adding those four professional positions is something Council can do right now, no waiting.

It increases the guaranteed personnel available immediately when the alarm comes in, adds medical-response capability, strengthens the professional core of the department and does so without replacing the volunteers who give Charlottetown the additional capacity needed when an emergency becomes larger.

I am going to repeat myself one more time:

Professional firefighters give us speed.

Volunteer firefighters give us capacity.

Charlottetown needs both.

Staffing. I would begin with a minimum of four professional firefighters on the initial on-duty response and build from there through a funded Fire Master Plan.

We need the third station. We need reliable equipment. We need our volunteer firefighters. But buildings and trucks cannot respond by themselves.

We need enough firefighters to protect the public and each other. That would be a priority of my administration.

There are actually two important things that I would do during my term to improve public safety.

First, we would continue to implement Community Risk Reduction through targeted fire prevention and public education. Stopping fires before they start saves more lives than emergency response alone. When a department focuses on education, it stops emergencies before fire fighters even have to roll the trucks. We will continue to distribute and install smoke alarms, inspect buildings, teach fire safety, and plan ahead to speed up emergency response. We will also continue to expand our City’s website on public safety to be more transparent and keep citizens abreast of the service.

Secondly, I want to acknowledge the work of both our full time and volunteer fire fighters. The citizens of Charlottetown should feel proud and safe knowing these folks are on the job. Change will occur, but in the interim, lets celebrate and thank these men and women for their service.

The biggest thing I would like to do with the fire department is to have more public events with their personnel involved to help restore a sense of community in the residents of the city, with the fire department as a central pillar of the city’s connection. Having the fire department directly involved in such programs will give the chance to increase education, improve harm reduction systems, allow people to meet new members of their communities, building stronger bonds that will help in times of need and restore trust in each other, hopefully breeding less division within the public. We are ever more distant from each other and continuing down this road will only lead to worse situations for everybody.