BC paramedics petitioning to be designated as an essential service

B.C. paramedics are petitioning to amend the Fire and Police Services Collective Bargaining Act in an effort to be recognized as an essential service.

The goal of the initiative is to give ambulance the same collective bargaining rights as firefighters and police officers, under a newly named Ambulance, Fire and Police Services Collective Bargaining Act.

The biggest part of that change would be that ambulance paramedics would no longer have the right to strike and their employers wouldn’t have the right to lock them out during a CBA disagreement.

Any impasse in collective bargaining negotiations would then be handled by an arbitrator.

The petitioning is part of B.C.’s initiative process, which no other province or territory in Canada has.

“Initiative is a process through which a registered voter can propose a new law or changes to an existing law on matters over which the provincial legislature has authority,” explains www.yourparamedics.ca, which has all the information on the B.C. paramedics specific initiative.

The voter, or voters, must collect signatures from 10% of registered voters in each of the province’s electoral districts if they want the petition to succeed.

According to the Initiative Act, the petition has 90 days to collect all the signatures it needs to succeed.

This particular petition was launched on January 9th, 2017, meaning they’ll be in circulation until April 9th, 2017.

Seeing as there are 85 electoral districts in B.C., the initiative will count on ambulance paramedics and other supporters to canvas every corner of the province to attain the necessary signatures.

“This is a real chance where we can work directly with the voters to force the government’s hand,” explains Troy Gienger, a B.C. paramedic of 23 years. “There is no question that if we get the numbers, this will happen.”

To find out how you can help, make a donation or canvas for signatures, visit www.yourparamedics.ca/information.