On June 12, the Joint Fire Committee for the Kaladar/Barrie Fire Department instructed its fire chief to remove cancer testing from the firefighters' health and wellness program. Minutes later, it received his report arguing that cancer prevention rules are a reason to keep the old wildfire truck. North Frontenac's Deputy Mayor, Roy Huetl, seconded the motion that cut the testing.
The resolution reads, in full: "Be It Resolved That the Committee instructs the Fire Chief to remove the cancer testing from the health and wellness program. Carried." Addington Highlands Councillor Helen Yanch moved it. The whole meeting took twenty minutes, and every resolution that morning reads "Carried" and nothing else. No recorded vote. The minutes give no reason.
It wasn't on the agenda either. I read every item on it, and none of them proposes cutting the testing. The motion came off the floor. That's lawful, and it also means no resident reading the agenda that week could have known it was coming.
Yanch also moved the very next item, which received Chief Casey Cuddy's report on the tanker and the replacement of the wildfire unit. That report argues for keeping the old wildfire truck rather than selling it, and here is why, in his words: "With the cancer prevention requirements all contaminated gear (hose, PPE, tools, scba, pretty much everything used on the fire) cannot go back on a truck or in a clean compartment until it is cleaned."
On the truck, he's right. Dirty hose comes home in the back of the chief's truck, on top of clean gear, or in a firefighter's pickup. A dedicated vehicle for it is a sensible ask, and this department is doing real work on the hazard.
The chief had put five pages on the health and wellness program in front of the committee first. The committee had asked him in February for more on the testing, and he writes that the question then was why the department was "doing testing beyond what OHIP provides." His report calls cancer the number one cause of firefighter deaths, and it recommends, in writing, that the program "be permitted to continue with the program being reviewed and evaluated annually." That clause never reached the floor. The agenda the members were handed printed only a motion to receive the report.
The report spends one sentence on the money: "All costs are covered in the budget." The 2025 general ledger shows a cheque for just over $14,000, described as firefighter cancer screening. North Frontenac pays half of this department. Your share was just over $7,000.
Testing people and hauling gear are different obligations. So why cut the testing? The minutes can't tell you, because nobody wrote it down.
No council ratifies any of it. Under the joint agreement this committee sets its own personnel and benefits policy, so the decision is its own.
Two of the members in the room that morning, including Helen Yanch, who moved the motion, have been acclaimed back into office and will not face a voter over it. North Frontenac's Wayne Good and Roy Huetl will, on October 26. The committee met again on September 18. Those minutes aren't approved until October 30, four days after you vote.
Wayne Good and Roy Huetl are candidates in the October 26 election.