2026 Charlottetown Municipal Election Questionnaire

We need to ensure that there is adequate succession planning and that the profession remains attractive to young people (pay, respect, working conditions, adequate time off, benefits, counselling services for those who experience trauma through the job).  We need to consider recruitment for career firefighters from the volunteer force.  We need to have a long-term budget cycle rather than year to year.

As Mayor, I will support a phased, long-term workforce plan based on the professional advice of the Fire Chief and his/her Deputy Fire Chief. The plan should address recruitment, retirements, relief coverage, training and the needs of the third station, with required investments incorporated into future City budgets.

What I take from the example is that we are currently understaffed, and before we build another fire hall that would likely be understaffed, we need to make sure our teams are ready. To keep up with the city's growth, we need to prioritize hiring more professional firefighters. You say we need 48; to make that possible, I want to be there before we open the new station.

We have to stop looking at staffing one annual budget at a time.

I have already committed to adding four professional firefighter positions immediately. That is a first step, not a claim that four additional positions represent Charlottetown’s final staffing requirement.

The new Fire Chief should then bring Council a multi-year workforce plan showing the desired operational model, existing staffing, relief requirements, expected retirements, recruitment and training timelines, volunteer availability, projected calls and the annual hiring required to reach the required level.

We have also discussed developing additional firefighter-paramedic capacity so that medical response can be provided without stripping away the core fire response. The precise model and number should be professionally designed.

If the long-term requirement is substantially greater than four additional firefighters, I would rather know that now and begin an orderly hiring program than discover the problem years from now.

I expect that five years from now Charlottetown will have a larger professional firefighting workforce than it has today. The exact number should follow the Fire Chief’s operational recommendations, call volumes, response data and the requirements of the three-station system rather than a number selected by Council in advance.

No one is suggesting that the City can fix every staffing issue in one budget. But that cannot be an excuse to keep putting it off.

We need a multi-year hiring plan with money attached to it. It must account for retirements, training, time off and the staff needed for additional stations.

The first step should be a minimum of four professional firefighters on the initial on-duty response. After that, the City needs steady yearly progress toward properly staffed stations and equitable service across Charlottetown.

Set the targets, fund them and report publicly on whether we met them. It doesn’t need to be more complicated than that.

The need for a third fire station has already been approved by Council and the planning is underway. The transition to full-time staff requires a long term plan considering the significant financial implications. I do believe that this long term plan needs to be developed and the necessary resources applied.

For this long term plan, we should adopt a data-driven, phased, and safety-focused approach that balances community growth with operational resilience. Council should ensure that we establish baselines and growth forecasting, transition toward industry staffing standards, build a sustainable recruitment and retention strategy, and implement measures such as shared-service agreements with neighboring municipalities including Stratford and Cornwall

I believe the city should have committees with active-duty and retired firefighters as a large portion to give input on those kinds of decisions, the committees should also include engineers, environmental scientists and city planners to make informed decisions instead of largely having politicians make those kinds of choices. I could see an approach based on the rates of emergency service usage being used as an alternative to staff per firehouse being a fair unit of measuring, but it would not be my first approach.