To the editor:

I trust that you will allow me, as the President of the Windsor Professional Fire Fighters Association, to address some of the incorrect and misleading statements Star columnists have made in the past two weeks about the city’s fire fighters and fire service.

It’s incorrect that fire fighters will receive a 15 per cent increase over four years, as reported in the Star. It’s over five years. It’s also false that 96 per cent of the fire department’s costs are labour. It’s significantly less than that. The 96-per cent cost figure is “non-discretionary spending” which also includes public education, inspections, fuel repairs and utilities.

Whether it’s worked as 24-hour shifts or not, the 42-hour workweek we are moving to is still longer than the average salaried worker’s week. It’s 234 hours more work annually than the typical 37.5-hour salaried workweek.

Fire’s role in responding to vehicle accidents is casually dismissed, but the fact is that we attend accidents to prevent, control and extinguish fires, to ensure patient accessibility and removal including extrication and to help ensure scene safety – all critical functions.

Finally, the department is ridiculed for “wanting to compete on the water, too.” Windsor has eight inland bodies of water, yet firefighters are currently not permitted within three feet of water’s edge. Our fast response would improve public safety. Likewise, we were accused of wanting to “pile up documented runs to the Detroit River every time someone falls in,” but the proposed water rescue program doesn’t include the Detroit River.

A Star columnist’s statement that “you can already imagine them sunning themselves on the dock, watching the girls go by” is disrespectful and degrading, especially to the female members of the department.

Few city services offer the value that the fire department does. For less than a dollar a day on the average assessment, taxpayers get skilled firefighters at their door in minutes, ready to respond to virtually any kind of emergency. Improving our skills with water rescue, for example, would improve public safety while adding just pennies to the average tax bill.

Conversely, cutting frontline fire services would increase response times and reduce public safety, saving pennies on the average tax bill while likely triggering increased insurance premiums for Windsor home and business owners.

Windsor fire fighters risk our lives and safety every day while protecting the lives and property of the people of this great city, and we perform countless hours of charitable work in the community while off duty. Our community work did not cease even when we went eight years without a contract. We will never turn our backs on the people of this great city.

We welcome the debate about what kind of fire department capabilities the city should have, as long as it’s based on facts. Our association is always available to talk to Star columnists or reporters anytime there’s uncertainty about what we do, what it costs and what its value is to the community and the taxpayer.

Angelo Gertsakis
President
Windsor Professional Fire Fighters Association