Data comes at high price for fire union
Peter Dyson, president of the OPFFA, says the union has been quoted as much as $26,000 to obtain needed data from MPAC. (Oshawa Express file photo).
By Joel Wittnebel/The Oshawa Express
As the city’s firefighters union continues to gather the necessary data to inform the creation of a community risk assessment, they continue to run into roadblocks, this time, a potential $26,000 bill.
According to Peter Dyson, the president of the Oshawa Professional Firefighters Association (OPFFA), the union has been recently struggling to get their hands on data related to building heights, storeys and building footprints across the City of Oshawa. It was data that Dyson was surprised to learn the city didn’t have.
“I feel that this data set is vital to the fire chief and planning and running our fire department,” Dyson says.
According to Deputy Fire Chief Steve Barkwell, the city does not have the information related to building footprints or heights, but instead relies on information from Statistics Canada which details the number of units in buildings in five storeys or taller, which he believes is suitable for the city’s purposes.
And while the city may not have the info, the union was able to find the agency that did. However, the news down that path wasn’t much better.
Dyson says the union was able to confirm that the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC), could provide the information, but it would come with a $26,000 price tag. It was a shocking number to see, Dyson says.
According to MPAC, that cost is in fact a discounted rate.
“The request received by the Oshawa Professional Firefighters Association is a custom request which includes a number of property data elements for more than 50,000 properties. As such, it requires staff resources to compile the multiple data elements to create a custom product for the Firefighters Association,” says Cathy Raineri Sweenie, the director of communication services for MPAC. “Given the nature of the inquiry, I understand that MPAC has offered the Oshawa Professional Firefighters Association a discounted rate for their custom request. We have also offered other options to meet budget requirements and are happy to work with them to find an alternative solution.”
With that said, Dyson notes that with or without the information, the OPFFA will be moving forward with their study as they compile information to be handed over the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF), who will be carrying out the analysis.
The hiccup with MPAC is only the latest in line of struggles the OPFFA has faced on their path toward creating an updated community risk assessment for the City of Oshawa, a document that would help inform the use of firefighting resources in the city and ensure that things are operating the best they can to serve the community.
In January, a deadly fire in downtown Oshawa killed four people, including two children, and it was after that that the union moved ahead with analyzing whether Oshawa Fire Services was best equipped and organized to deal with the growing city.
In March, the union released an initial report from the IAFF which found residents in downtown Oshawa, based on certain demographic and social factors, were more vulnerable to fire fatalities. The significant findings of the report determined that based on age, income levels and the number of older dwellings centered in the city’s downtown core, people are more at risk of dying in a fire.
Following that, the union called on the city to assist them in creating an updated risk assessment. However, the reaction from the city was far from welcoming and the union had to file a series of Freedom of Information requests in order to obtain data to help inform the assessment.
Dyson, appearing before the Community Services committee, appealed directly to councillors for assistance in getting OFS administration to cooperate with their requests, and even requested a partnership to move things forward. The request was met with zero action.
However, since that time, Dyson says the city clerk’s office has been quite cooperative.
“The clerk’s office has been great to deal with,” he says. “They’ve turned over everything they said they would and it’s been in the formats, mostly, in what we’ve been asking for.”
Moving forward, Dyson says that regardless of whether they are able to obtain the final data set from MPAC, the report will be moving forward.
“We are going to do the report without that information if we don’t get it,” Dyson says. “It would enhance the report, but it’s not do or die for the report.”