K.C. Jordan, LJI Journalist
The MRC Pontiac announced it will participate in a fire prevention technician (FPT) training program, sending one trainee to a certification course at the Cégep de l’Outaouais in Gatineau starting in January 2025.
The program is designed to meet an urgent need for FPTs in the region, a type of specialist whose duties include inspecting properties to ensure compliance with fire codes, as well as organizing public awareness events around fire prevention.
The MRC currently has one technician on staff, and recently hired a contractor to fill the second position.
Public security coordinator Julien Gagnon said the MRC has been trying to hire a second full-time officer for a few years now without success.
The position requires a certification for which, until recently, training wasn’t regularly available in Western Quebec.
“It’s just not available in this area,” he said, noting the nearest Cégep offering the program was previously in Montréal.
The training program is being offered as a partnership between the Cégep de l’Outaouais and the City of Gatineau, with the MRC Pontiac being allotted one seat in the course.
While the MRC’s previous calls for applicants to fill its second position have found no returns, Gagnon said it should be different this time because the training is being offered.
“Any person with a high school diploma who is willing to return to school for one year can be promised the position,” he wrote in an email to THE EQUITY.
“This opens up the candidate pool from near-zero potential candidates to almost anyone.”
Gagnon expects a few local volunteer firefighters to apply, but he notes firefighting is not a prerequisite for the position. Anyone may apply, although he notes the course will only be offered in French by the Cégep.
The MRC will pay for all fees related to the course, including school registration fees, books and application fees.
The program will feature an average of 23 hours a week of instruction over four consecutive school semesters, ending in December 2025.
Upon completion of the training, the MRC will offer a full-time position to the candidate.
Gagnon said the addition of another full-time officer should help to cover an increasingly heavy workload.
“We’ve always needed two of these positions at the MRC,” he said, noting that one inspector alone is not able to perform the number of building inspections they must do.
In 2017 the MRC’s Fire Safety Cover Plan expanded the number of buildings that require inspection. Gagnon wrote in an email that the document “increased our inspection load more than threefold.”
The MRC began to delegate certain inspections to local firefighters, but that practice stopped in 2020 when the Ministry of Public Security mandated that all non-residential, higher-risk buildings be inspected by a trained technician.
The MRC now has to inspect just under 800 buildings every five years, which Gagnon said is a large workload for one FPT and one contractor to handle. He said with these two they are able to complete all of the inspections, but only just.
“We’re just getting by,” he said, adding that the FPT is essentially spending all his time doing inspections and not seeing to the public awareness side of the job.
“We’re sort of lacking on the public awareness side, and that’s where a full-time, in-house prevention officer can do a much better job at that.”
Richard Pleau, the MRC’s current fire prevention technician, said in an emailed statement that the addition of a second full-time technician comes at just the right time.
“We must inspect more farm buildings. We also organize evacuation and public awareness drills. Finally, the department must carry out inspections and contribute to research into the causes of fires. An additional resource will enable us to carry out more tasks, and, ultimately, reduce the risk of fire in the MRC Pontiac.”