Efforts to merge the Bradford West Gwillimbury and Innisfil fire departments have gone up in flames.
Bradford West Gwillimbury council voted at its May 2 meeting to dissolve the Joint Interim Fire Governance Advisory Committee (JIFGAC) that had been struck last year to hash out an agreement between the southern Simcoe County municipalities and consolidate their two fire services.
Innisfil council will consider the JIFGAC recommendation to dissolve at its May 10 meeting.
It’s not the ending Chief Brent Thomas envisioned.
“Naturally, I’m a little disappointed, because even though the council members on both sides did agree that there are benefits to both communities by having a larger fire service to service the growth,” he said. “When you consider a larger service, we have larger resources to draw from and to allocate and to move around, as one department.”
In the end, Bradford West Gwillimbury council was told a gap of only $33,000 annually over the first six years of a merger threw water on the deal. Mayor James Leduc shared in the chief’s disappointment that the towns couldn’t come to an agreement.
“We couldn’t get past the (first) six years, the entry into it,” Leduc said. “Because we all understood, when you get to 2030, having a joint service would be beneficial to both communities. But there was the costing in the front, and we just couldn’t get past that. It’s too bad.”
It wasn’t for lack of trying, Innisfil Mayor Lynn Dollin said.
“I think we came to an agreement on what the funding formula would be in the long term, but in the short term, for the first seven or eight years, the model showed quite a significant difference in what each community (would save),” she said. “So, we weren’t able to get past that transition piece.”
Merger talks began last summer, following the completion of a report from Ernst & Young. That report stated the two municipalities had found already found some savings through the hiring of Thomas to act as head of both the Bradford West Gwillimbury Fire and Emergency Service and the Town of Innisfil Fire and Rescue Service, but would need to consolidate if they wanted the opportunity to further reduce costs while improving service levels.
Overall, Leduc called the negotiations “good,” but found ultimately the committee, as a whole, didn’t share his appetite for change.
“Anytime you get into negotiations like that, it’s a touchy situation,” Leduc said. “You’ve got residents that are a little apprehensive of certain things. When it comes to change, not too many people really endorse change. Even though you say you really want change, once you see what change looks like, you tend not to endorse. I’m a pretty aggressive person when it comes to change. I look forward to change, I think change is good for everybody. It keeps everybody sharp.”
Since August, the JIFGAC had reached a consensus on several issues, including what the governance model for a joint fire service would look like and how a governance committee would be composed, as well as a timeline for consolidation.
But what it couldn’t agree upon was the initial costs for Bradford West Gwillimbury and the savings for Innisfil. Only $200,000 separated the two towns in their proposals for cost-sharing over the first six years, with Innisfil seeking to save $2.4 million over that time, and Bradford West Gwillimbury offering $2.2 million.
“It just boils down to money,” Leduc said. “Really, there is a breaking point for everybody when it comes to money. You can get to a certain point and you just can’t go any further.”
Just because an agreement ultimately couldn’t be reached, doesn’t mean the negotiations should be viewed as a failure, Dollin suggested.
“I think everybody went in there hoping to find common ground and I think they were respectful and everybody was sort of rowing in the same direction,” Dollin said. “From that standpoint, I think they went as well as they could.”
While she felt the majority of the firefighters in the two municipalities would have supported a merger – an issue also raised during Bradford West Gwillimbury council’s discussion on the matter – Dollin didn’t hear many opinions from residents either way on consolidating or not, and agreed that if such a groundswell had existed the outstanding issues might have been solved.
All along, Dollin indicated her desire to ensure those residents in Innisfil were best served by any consolidation, often likening the negotiations to a pre-nuptial agreement before a wedding. She’s "incredibly proud" of the fire service in the municipality, comprising of five fire halls, four of which have come into service during the nearly 30 years she’s served on town council.
“Any time you make a decision like this, you have to do it eyes wide open and be 100 per cent confident because there’s no turning back,” Dollin said. “There’s no saying ‘oh, this isn’t working, let’s go back and do separate again.’ That doesn’t happen.”
The exercise wasn’t for nought. Thomas saw a lot of positives for both communities that came from the discussions held by the JIFGAC and the report from Ernst & Young that proceeded them.
“There’s a lot of work that was done that can be beneficial to both fire departments to run independently,” Thomas said. “So, it poised us for meeting the needs of the community and the growth that’s anticipated in the community as we move forward.”
One place where both Bradford West Gwillimbury and Innisfil will see that in action is in the training that the two fire departments will undertake, especially as they develop into communities that seek to increase their respective populations without succumbing to further urban sprawl.
In Innisfil the Orbit development looms as one of the larger examples, with buildings proposed to reach 40 storeys tall. That kind of height isn’t on the docket in Bradford West Gwillimbury, but several eight-to-12 storey building are currently working their way through proposals or are actively under construction. Even without formal consolidation, Thomas said the two services working together will be an immense benefit to both towns.
“As we grow as a community, so that means buildings go high,” Thomas said. “Working together, and doing what we call high-rise firefighting, we’re learning and doing because we’ll be backing each other up through the mutual aid program, as opposed to a larger fire department…. It just means that we’re going to be able to train together because we’ll probably respond to these incidents (together).”
Dollin also pointed out the partnership between the towns – and accordingly the safety of their residents – wouldn’t suffer from this decision.
“We will continue to mutually work together,” she said. “Fire services provide mutual aid regardless and we will work together, but at this time, the committee is recommending not moving forward (with consolidation).”
Perhaps the biggest change for Bradford West Gwillimbury is the increase in its full-time firefighters, an issue that was looming for the municipality – and a stumbling block for Innisfil in the initial negotiations – but was thrust to the forefront by the Ernst & Young report and the potential to merge.
Bradford West Gwillimbury will hire 20 new firefighters over the next two years, with 12 joining the service in the summer and another eight in 2024, which Thomas called “a huge bonus” and “benefit to this community.”
Many of those new firefighters will be housed in the town’s second fire hall, a top priority for council, which is planned to be operational as early as the end of 2024.
“We’ll stay on that path and we’ll have that station pretty soon,” Leduc said. “It’ll be in this term we’ll have that second station. It’s something this community was going to do anyway. That hasn’t changed.”
One thing that isn’t changing – at least not yet – is Thomas’s role. For the foreseeable future, it will be business as usual for the municipalities when it comes to the administration of the fire departments, as the joint chief fire agreement, in place since May 2020, will remain.
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