Montreal’s fire department says it wants to double the number of female and visible minority firefighters over the next four years in order to diversify its majority white male corps.

White men currently represent 97 per cent of the city’s fire department. Of more than 2,300 firefighters on the force, just 29 are women, and 24 are visible minorities.

Meanwhile, more than half of Montreal residents are women, and one in three residents is a visible minority.

Read more about Montreal fire department's plans to diversify

At a meeting of the city’s public security committee on Tuesday, fire department officials said they will work with schools and training colleges to find more diverse recruits.

“We worked really hard on recruiting in cultural communities and amongst women but our biggest challenge was we could only hire people who graduated from the schools,” deputy director Richard Liebmann said.

“As of this past year or two we’ve been working hard with the schools to increase recruitment and make sure the schools attract women and people from cultural communities and visible minorities.”

City councillor Alex Norris said Montreal’s fire department is not the only one struggling with a lack of diversity.

“Fire departments, in general around the world, have been a disproportionately male, disproportionately white, culturally homogenous workforce,” he said.

With a report from CTV Montreal’s Rob Lurie