It’s very exciting to see the next edition of our new fire news getting out to you highlighting Quarter 1 of 2023. I hope this helps with our communication with you and in some way, from you to us.

Since our last offering We have been working on several fronts to serve you better: Improving relationships with the new Fire Commissioner, the Minister, Deputy Minister, and Assistant Deputy Minister has been a priority and is going very well. We have also been meeting with MNL and PMA to work on issues such as the code of conduct training, relationships between fire departments and their councils, Air B&B regulations, and identifying other opportunities to collaborate. Building the channel of communication and trust is important when we consider the work we have before us and together we can accomplish so much more.

We have also been working on our committees as we identified opportunities to serve our membership. One such committee is our new cancer prevention committee, chaired by Director Kent Abbott.

With the availability of ambulances being identified as an issue for many of our members we have been working with the Newfoundland and Labrador Private Ambulance Operators Association, The Community based Ambulance Services Association and the Association of Paramedics Newfoundland and Labrador to develop a united recommendation to the Department of Health. We hope by doing so we may expedite a solution to ease the burden on our members who find themselves heavily burdened with long wait times and increased numbers of calls. To help us gather the required data we have developed a survey that we will be distributing in the hopes that each department will take the time to fill out and return. Doing so ensures we have the information we need to show that our concerns are justified and legitimate.

As much as we want to ensure you are being informed of what we are doing, we would like to know what you have been doing as well. It would be greatly appreciated if you folks could send us your events, training ideas or anything you think would be beneficial to your fellow members.

As always, if you want to contact me, my cell is 709 425 3494. If I can’t answer right away, I will get back to you as soon as possible. With that said I hope you all have a quiet spring and if there is anything you believe we could or should be doing we want to hear it. Thank you all for your continued support and we hope to see you very soon.

Duane