Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good afternoon. My name is Rob Simonds and I'm the fire chief in Saint John, New Brunswick, and the president of the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs. I'm here to speak about a serious public safety issue in Canada.
The Government of Canada can play a vital role in solving the growing problem of recruiting and retaining volunteer firefighters through the introduction of a $3,000 income tax credit for volunteer firefighters who have performed more than 200 hours of service each year. By way of background, the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs is a non-partisan national association that was formed in 1908. Our 1,000 members include fire chiefs and other chief fire officers from every Canadian province and territory and include fire chiefs from Canada's first nations, industry, airports, seaports, major health care facilities, and Canadian Forces establishments. Our national board of directors includes the president of each provincial and territorial association of fire chiefs.
The CAFC is in the best position to speak on behalf of all elements of the Canadian fire service. I would offer, Mr. Chair, that volunteer firefighters are unique, even amongst other volunteer emergency first responders. Many Canadians, including members of Parliament, are shocked to learn that the vast majority of Canadian communities are protected by volunteer firefighters. Of Canada's 3,492 fire departments, more than 91% are volunteer departments, and four out of every five firefighters are volunteers. In many of Canada's rural and remote communities, volunteer firefighters are the only emergency service first responders. In no other emergency responder service do volunteers play such a significant role.
While they are volunteers in name, their training and the services they provide are highly professional. Unlike other volunteer emergency responders, they are trained in the same way as are career firefighters. Once volunteers are recruited, for them to be properly trained takes approximately three years, and sadly, many of them do not stay past five years. The lack of reimbursement for out-of-pocket expenses, inadequate equipment and resources, and the time spent away from families and paid employment make it difficult to attract new volunteer firefighters and to keep those already trained.
Other emergency service providers choose when they want to volunteer, whereas volunteer firefighters are often on call all the time. These brave men and women leave their full-time jobs to attend emergencies, losing wages and incurring personal cost in the process.
So how much will this tax credit cost Canadian taxpayers? The CAFC is currently conducting a survey of Canadian fire departments to determine how many volunteers would qualify for this proposal in order to provide the Minister of Finance with accurate costing. However, if we assume that 75% of Canada's volunteer firefighters would qualify, this tax credit would cost the Government of Canada less than $29 million a year. To put this in perspective, it would cost $3.8 billion to replace Canada's volunteer firefighters with paid, full-time firefighters at $45,000 a year. To pay existing volunteers for their current hours of voluntary service at a rate of $23 per hour would cost more than $860 million a year. These are very conservative estimates that provide a cost-benefit perspective for this committee.
What compensation do volunteer firefighters currently receive? There are some misconceptions that volunteer firefighters are sufficiently compensated for their volunteer service. It is true that in limited cases in some provinces volunteer firefighters receive an hourly stipend for responding to emergencies. This is rare. Most volunteer fire departments do not offer hourly stipends. For those that do, stipends usually cover only the specific time a volunteer spends responding to calls, which on average amounts to less than 30% of a volunteer's time commitment.
Currently, up to $1,000 of any stipend provided to a volunteer firefighter does not have to be declared as personal income. Unfortunately, this tax credit is of limited value because only 20% of volunteer fire departments have the fiscal capacity to provide honorariums. The 74% that do provide less than $1,000. That is why Canada's fire chiefs have proposed that the current $1,000 tax credit be replaced by a $3,000 non-refundable tax credit that can be applied to any income.
We strongly believe that our tax relief proposal is urgently needed and would help ensure that rural Canadians would receive the same level of fire service as those who live in urban Canada. The CAFC recently launched a website in support of our proposed tax credit. The website, www.givefirefighterscredit.ca, includes a petition that members of the public can sign in support of their volunteers. In just two weeks, the petition has received more than 2,000 signatures.
Mr. Chairman, in summary, I would offer that the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs is committed to working with the Government of Canada. We feel that as stewards of public safety it's our responsibility to alert the Government of Canada when there are issues that would impinge upon public safety, and we are concerned that we could fall into crisis with respect to having insufficient resources across this country. We are committed to working with government and pleased to be before this committee today.
Thank you.