Fire Fight

Nick Seebruch
Fire Fight

CORNWALL, Ontario – A talk about overtime turned into a raucous debate between the Mayor and Councillor Mark MacDonald and Fire Chief Pierre Voisine at the Cornwall Council meeting on Nov. 27.

At the previous meeting of Council it was revealed that the Cornwall Fire Services had exceeded its overtime budget by $100, 000.

Councillor Mark MacDonald raised the question of sustainability of the service.

“We’re not picking on the fire department we are trying to save jobs because its not sustainable,” he said. “People around this table don’t want to admit we have a problem. Can we afford to spend $150, 000 for a guy to live an hour out of town and you can’t even get him to a fire on time,” he asked.

He was referring to Fire Chief Pierre Voisine living in Clarence-Rockland.

At this, Mayor Leslie O’Shaughnessy cut off the Councillor.

“Those words aren’t uncalled for,” he said. “Every council meeting I hear you Councillor MacDonald talk about sustainability, but I have yet to hear a proposal from you on what to do about it.”

Councillor MacDonald claimed that it was not his opinion that Fire Services were unsustainable, but the facts that were laid out in the Fire Master Plan.

In some cases, such as the Ontario Hockey Academy fire in May 2016, some Cornwall firefighters were unreachable which lead to firefighters being called in from neighbouring municipalities at the cost of the City of Cornwall.

Firefighters are not required to work overtime.

Councillor Elaine MacDonald felt that Councillor Mark MacDonald’s statements in regards to Chief Voisine’s residency could constitute harassment.

Councillor Claude McIntosh pointed out that in 2015, the Fire Services had their overtime budget cut by $100, 000.

“Council is not unanimous about our criticism about the Fire Service,” said Councillor Bernadette Clement, who wanted to make clear that not all members of Council shared Councillor Mark MacDonald’s stance on the issue.

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