Chatham-Kent's Fire-Paramedic chief says just because a blended EMS and fire service didn't work in Owen Sound and was dismissed in Toronto, that doesn't mean it won't work here.
Ken Stuebing says the blended service model that they are presenting to council is tailored specifically to Chatham-Kent.
"Chatham-Kent is a lot different than those communities, which will allow us to structure the organization differently," says Stuebing. "Hopefully we can end up in a place that, if council is ready to go down that path, makes sense for improving the level of service and doing it in the most effective and efficient manner possible."
The City of Toronto commissioned a study in 2013 that looked at blending the two services there, but ultimately decided against it. Stuebing says that's not a fair comparison, though.
"We didn't try to put together a model that would be used in a big metropolitan department in this organization because it wouldn't work here," says Stuebing.
While blended service models may not be common in Ontario, Stuebing says they have been working in other jurisdictions in Canada and parts of the United States for a long time.
He says their proposal to Chatham-Kent Council is also getting a lot of interest from a number of communities in Ontario and even some from across the country.
"Recently, we had two people fly out here -- one from Saskatchewan and one from Alberta -- to take a look at our model," says Stuebing. "They were very intrigued with it and thought it made a lot of sense and couldn't see it not being beneficial for the community."
Stuebing is very open about the fact that the blended model would include fully licensed cross-trained firefighter/paramedics, but when it comes to specifics of how that model would affect the current staff, he can't say much.
"It's a difficult situation to talk about right now because we are in the midst of contract negotiations," says Stuebing. "We are also trying to maintain relationships as much as possible because if council chooses to go with Model A, Model B, or Model C, we need to be able to have relationships in tact to be able to do that."
For more information on the three options that council will be considering, click here.
At the end of the day, Stuebing says the reality is, a difficult decision needs to be made.
"In my heart of hearts I believe something needs to change in Emergency Services because the system is causing a lot of stress in municipal budgets right across Canada," says Stuebing. "This is an opportunity to not put EMS in a bad spot and not put fire in a bad spot in the future, but there's a lot of information we can't necessarily talk about openly because we're the midst of those contract negotiations."