This was an idea that came from an end of season AAR and from the US finally making headway in their similar fight. The long distances between us have made any sort of unified voice impossible. We wanted to create an organization capable of bridging that distance and allowing us to make the changes we want to see. We have already started a province wide conversation. So many of you share the same ideas, and now we have a platform to push those ideas forward.

Build a following, create a support system.

Engage members. What issues are you seeing that we haven’t discussed?

As of right now, we would love for people to share the Instagram account around, share the website etc. We are currently working out the legal details to call us a “non profit” and sell stuff to fund the website. We will need base reps in the near future. So if you or anyone at your base is interested send an email to contact@opawf.ca. It will probably involve a small interview on teams or something just to prove identity and make sure people are on the same page with what we would be expecting of them.

If you are involved with the current union, OPSEU, and have experience with the collective agreement we would also like to hear from you.

Yes, in the future. Ideally before the next fire season starts. This will help pay for the website costs, logo design, advertising, and any legal costs. We are in the process of partnering with a print on demand service to deal with printing/shipping and hosting a store on our site.