Winnipeg firefighters can’t keep doing more with less

Fifty years ago, Winnipeg had fewer people, fewer challenges, and more firefighters. Today, our city has grown by roughly 53 per cent, but the Winnipeg Fire Department (WFD) has fewer frontline firefighters on duty than it did in 1975. This is not just a historical footnote. It is a red flag.

In 1975, Winnipeg’s population was about 556,000, and the WFD staffed 175 firefighters per shift. Fast forward to 2025: our city is now projected to have more than 850,000 residents, yet minimum staffing has dropped to just 167 firefighters per shift. That is a 4.5 per cent cut in people, despite a 53 per cent growth in population. If staffing had kept pace, Winnipeg would have 268 firefighters on duty today. This is the math of decline.

In 1975, each firefighter protected about 3,181 residents. Today, that number has ballooned to 5,090 — a 60 per cent increase in workload per person.

It would be one thing if the job had stayed the same. But in 1975, the WFD primarily fought fires. Today, firefighters are trained and deployed in hazardous materials response, ice rescue, water rescue, high-angle rescue, trench rescue, and vehicle extrication. On top of this, every fire truck and rescue unit now carries paramedics, making Winnipeg one of Canada’s only integrated fire/EMS services.

That means Winnipeg firefighters don’t just fight fires. They respond to medical emergencies, technical rescues, environmental hazards, and the growing number of vacant building fires that plague our neighbourhoods. The scope and complexity of the work has multiplied, while resources have not.

• Fire losses: Winnipeg records the highest rate of residential structure fire losses per 100,000 households anywhere in Canada, and the figure continues to climb.

• Response times: Our fire department is the slowest among major Canadian cities, arriving more than two minutes behind the national median. In an emergency, those minutes mean everything.

• Public satisfaction: According to the city’s own measures, fewer than one in four residents are “very satisfied” with the safety of buildings as enforced through fire inspections.

• Medical calls: Medical emergencies now account for the vast majority of responses. Winnipeg firefighters are not only stretched thin by fire calls, but by growing paramedic demand that comes with running an integrated system.

• Operating costs: Winnipeg runs this service at costs well below the national median. We get more service per dollar than almost anywhere else in Canada — but being the cheapest has real consequences.

City officials often celebrate the fact that Winnipeg has “done more with less” for decades. But when it comes to emergency services, that phrase is dangerous. At some point, the system breaks. When trucks sit empty because there are not enough crews to staff them, response times stretch. When response times stretch, fires spread, brain cells die, and lives are lost.

Winnipeg is already Canada’s busiest fire department per capita, and the second busiest overall — behind only Toronto, a city nearly four times our size. Yet our frontline strength is shrinking, not growing.

The clearest example of penny-wise, pound-foolish decision-making is the city’s reliance on overtime. In 2024 alone, the WFD blew past its budget, spending more than $10 million in overtime — money that could have hired over 70 full-time firefighters. Instead, taxpayers pay a premium for exhausted staff while fire trucks sit browned out, unavailable to respond when calls come in.

This is not efficiency. It is waste. It is a policy choice that burns money without solving the problem.

Cutting resources in emergency services does not save money in the long run. Fires that burn longer destroy more homes and businesses. Medical emergencies that go unanswered lead to longer hospital stays and higher healthcare costs. And when citizens no longer feel safe, the social and economic toll is harder to calculate but just as real.

What Winnipeg needs is not just to “catch up” to 1975 levels. We need a fire service resourced for 2025 realities: a bigger city, a more complex risk profile, and a growing demand for medical response.

This is a choice. Winnipeg can continue to pretend that 167 firefighters can do the work of 268, or we can recognize reality and invest in the safety net that protects every neighbourhood. City council would never tolerate having fewer police officers than it did in 1975. It would never accept having fewer snowplows. Yet somehow, it has quietly allowed our fire protection to erode for half a century.

The men and women of the Winnipeg Fire Department have shouldered the burden. They have trained harder, stretched thinner, and carried heavier loads. But “doing more with less” is not sustainable when lives are at stake. The time for stretching is over. The time for serious reinvestment is now.

Nick Kasper is the president of the United Firefighters of Winnipeg IAFF Local 867 and has been a Winnipeg firefighter/paramedic for over 18 years. He is also a Winnipeg resident.