Volunteer firefighter could lose Toronto job after ‘double-hatting’

TORONTO – Tom Hunse has been a volunteer firefighter at the Cookstown station in the town of Innisfil for the last 26 years, before being hired as a professional firefighter in Toronto in the early 1990’s. Now his union is threatening to fire him, if he continues to “double-hat,” as it’s known.

But Hunse says four years after someone filed a complaint about him volunteering in Innisfil, he’s not giving up his volunteer job, arguing “it would kill me if my neighbour’s house was burning down and I couldn’t do anything about it.”

Hunse, who lives just a few blocks from the Cookstown firehall, says he has a skill and doesn’t understand “why can I not use that skill in my community to help my friends, families and neighbours?”

But the Ontario Union of Professional Firefighters says Hunse is not really a volunteer since he’s making between $25-40 an hour. Carmen Santoro, the president of the union, says when Hunse was hired “he took an oath to abide by the constitution” to not double-hat.

Santoro says if Innisfil was a purely volunteer fire department, there would not be a conflict. He said the problem lies in the fact that one of four fire stations in Innisfil is made up of full-time unionized employees.

“He’s also taking work away from someone else in the community that may want to be a part-time firefighter and earn $25-40 an hour, and quite possibly use that as experience that’s required to apply for a full-time firefighting position.”

The Union says there’s also a health and safety risk if a volunteer firefighter were to work all night at a fire, before going straight to work at his full-time job. But Hunse says his priority is his job in Toronto and says he turns off his pager when he’s due at his Station #422 on Jane St. near Dundas.

“I think my free time should be my free time,” he said, explaining it’s not about the money. Last year, he believes he earned $3-5,000.

The mayor of Innisfil fully supports Hunse and other professional firefighters who double-hat, saying they bring experience to other volunteer firefighters.

“We are one of two provinces in Canada that do not have the right to do this: to be able to volunteer in a community as a professional firefighter, and it’s time the legislature made that change,” said Barb Baguley.

The mayor said Cookstown is simply too small to staff with full-time firefighters. They’ve responded to 160 calls so far this year, or roughly 20 per month, mostly collisions on Highway 400.

Hunse will go before the arbitration board in October and then the labour relations board. He vows to stick with his fight since he knows there are many other two-hatters like him in the fire department, who have never been reported. He considers them men and women who simply want to volunteer in their spare time to keep their hometowns safe.