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“Besides the equal pay provision for volunteer firefighters, there are other provisions that could be very costly to municipalities,” said Lynn Dollin, president of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario. “We’re taking the position that this was unintentional. (Labour) Minister (Kevin) Flynn has met with us multiple times saying that municipal governments were employers of choice, we were not the intended targets of this bill. We truly believe that they threw their nets wide and captured us, even though we weren’t meant to be captured.”

The bill aims to strengthen legislation to better protect part-time, contract, volunteer or employees on internships. It spells out how those workers are to be scheduled, how much they are to be paid and how many hours they should be paid for during each shift.

According to the bill, volunteer firefighters would require equal pay to full-time permanent firefighters and they would need to be scheduled a minimum of four days in advance of a shift. They also are to be paid a minimum of three-hours wages for each shift they are scheduled, whether they work or not. That last caveat is the one that seems to be the hardest part of the new legislation for municipalities to swallow.

Currently, volunteer firefighters in Ottawa are paid a starting wage of $17 per hour, that goes up to around $22 per hour based on seniority. Volunteers are currently only paid for the hours they work. They clock in when they receive notification of a fire or other emergency and are clocked out when the incident has been dealt with.