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Each year CAFC holds a Government Relations Week through which Fire Chiefs meet with Members of Parliament and other elected or senior officials. During this week we discuss key issues in the fire service, our prebudget asks, and engage in relationship building and education on Parliament Hill.

This year 48 fire chiefs from across the country came to Ottawa to share the results of the Great Canadian Fire Census, the related issues and the proposed solutions.

You can read about the Census here

You can read our Government Relations Leave-behind here

You can find photographs here

Among the key findings in the Report:

• Lack of emergency resources to support housing development: 69% in urban centres reported significant new housing starts, yet only 17% (less than 1 in 5) have any new resources
• Almost half of communities at risk of downgraded fire protection rating: With 46% of communities at risk of downgraded fire protection ratings due in part to aging equipment, any new fire-related costs would then need to be absorbed by the municipalities’ budgets
  
• Wildfire readiness: 9 in 10 fire departments have some involvement in wildfire response in the past year, yet only half had the required equipment to meet the needs for wildfire season
• Only 18% have benefited from the federal funding of wildfire equipment to the provinces and territories.
• Aging equipment: 56% of fire departments have deferred essential equipment purchases up from 48% in 2022; close to 25% are using equipment that has surpassed industry standards by 10-20 years

The lack of equipment poses a threat not only to response capacity but to fire protection ratings which impact local insurance rates. This alongside new pressures from electric vehicle and other lithium-ion battery fires and disjointed explosives regulations. Canada had over 400 of each of these types of fires last year.

Further, in 2024 alone, the cost of four major emergency events in Canada reached $7.7B in insurance loss, exceeding the total budgets of all fire departments in Canada by nearly $2 billion. Fire departments responded to more than two million calls in 2024.

“We’re asking the federal government to lead a national reinvestment in fire and emergency preparedness equipment,” says Keri Martens, Vice President, CAFC and Fire Chief in Banff. “The return of a modernized Joint Emergency Prepared Program will create incentives for provinces, territories and local governments to secure an economy of effort on this crucial pursuit.”

Establish a National Fire Administration & Invest in Equipment & Training

Establishing a National Fire Administration could be one of the most consequential policy instruments in the history of fire and emergency management in Canada. The National Fire Administration, made up of fire chiefs from across the country, will allow Canada to recognize, address and coordinate on a regular, systematic and national basis, all fire and emergency management issues. “It will also provide a solution to coordination issues such as the ones that were identified in Jasper,” says McMullen who served as one of four incident commanders there this summer.