Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to table a petition that was collected by the National Union of Public and General Employees.
The petition first highlights that wildland and forest firefighters across Canada perform life-threatening public safety duties, including wildfire suppression and evacuation. They protect communities, ecosystems, property and critical infrastructure during increasingly severe wildfire seasons. The petitioners also highlight that climate change has led to longer, hotter and more destructive wildfire seasons, placing wildland and forest firefighters at a growing risk to their physical and mental health. However, they routinely deploy across provinces and territories, and internationally, to provide emergency response. Despite performing the same dangerous work as other firefighters, wildland and forest firefighters are excluded from the firefighter category in the national occupational classification, which is a misclassification that limits their access to recognition, benefits and protections available to other firefighters and public safety workers.
The petitioners therefore call on the government to immediately correct the miscalculation of wildland and forest firefighters in the national occupational classification by recognizing them as firefighters. They also ask the government to remove any and all federal barriers that prevent wildland and forest firefighters from being recognized as the firefighters and public safety workers that they are.