Wabush airport firefighting issues stem from federal cuts, say Labrador officials

Officials inLabrador West arecalling on the federal government to provide more supportforfirefighting services at the Wabush airport.

MHA Jordan Brown says Transport Canada'sdecision to halt the service in 2020 shows how "out of touch" the federal government is with northern communities.

"It's just another cut to this region," said Brown.

"Both federal and provincial Liberal governments in this region just seem to feel that to save money, they'll cut in northern areas where they think no one will notice."

On Friday, Labrador City announced the town'svolunteer firefighters would no longer respond to the airportin its twin community.

Labrador CityMayor Belinda Adamssays the decision follows an emergency landing at the airport in January.

Even though nobody was injured, the airport's emergency response plan was criticized as outdated.

Safety, Adams said, is the town's main priority, but it's not guaranteed when volunteer firefighters are forced to do a job they aren't trained for.

"It's time to make a stop and take a hard stand on that," said Adams.

Brown, once a volunteer firefighter himself, agrees.

"You don't see volunteer fire departments at St. John's International Airport or Toronto International Airport. They're paid professionals. They're paid and their profession is crash rescue," said Brown.

"It would be ridiculous to think that you have to download this burden onto volunteer firefighters. And if the government thinks that that's a reasonable approach, well, they really need to rethink their thinking."

The airport has been without dedicated rescue and firefighting service since August 2020, when Transport Canada halted the service citing insufficient passenger numbers.

That decision wasbased on poordata, said Brown, as the department used only scheduled commercial flightsto measure the passenger volume.

"In this region, mining charter flights is a substantial part of the number of flights and passengers," said Brown.

"It kind of throws the numbers out of whack that you're seeing all these aircrafts with huge volumes come through, but they are only picking up on the PAL flight, Air Canada flight."

The department requires a passenger threshold of 180,000 to uphold rescue and firefighting services.

Brown suspects financial reasons behind the decision.

"It was just a blatant move to save less than a million dollars," said Brown.

"That's all they see is the number in the ledger, not the people that it actually represents."

Adams wants to see a joint review of the mutual aid agreement and the emergency response plan for the airport, which were put in place when the airport still had a full-time firefighting service.

"At that time, it served a purpose," said Adams.

"Currently with that mutual aid agreement and no plan in place, we want our firefighters responding, but they don't have the training. That's not in the mutual aid agreement to commit to that."

In the long run, both Adams and Brown want the government to acknowledge the need for firefighters trained in aircraft emergencies.

"This is not a real thing to cut, the firefighting service. It is really hard to comprehend andpeople here are so frustrated with it," said Brown.

"The federal government needs to reinstate firefighting service at the airport that they took out of there. That is really the only solution."

Both the Town of Wabush and Transport Canada told CBC News they would comment in the coming days.

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