Scapegoats
The facts say 23 of the 24 residents of six Hochelaga/Maisonneuve duplexes fled a fire which raged through the Gonthier Ave. neighbourhood early Friday. But it was only 36 hours later, after he failed to show for a gig, that 26-year-old hip-hop musician, Jonathon Beaupré Guilbault, better known as Joe B.G., is presumed to have died in the fire. Known as Joe B.G, the young man wasn’t sought out during evacuation procedures because he’d parked his car at the back of the building, which he did when he was headed out of town.
Now the death of Joe B.G. is being turned into a political issue — the Montreal Firefighters Brotherhood speculating he’d be alive if Station 40 hadn’t been closed down due to a rodent infestation, if the roster had been posted to a trailer or other temporary housing unit while the rats were being smoked out, if there were the 1,000 more firefighters and 12 new fire stations that the brotherhood says are the minimum for adequate fire coverage — if, if, if.
The SPM has fired back, accusing the union of trying to turn the tragedy into a union hobbyhorse.
The Montreal Fire department is in negotiations with its firefighters for a new contract....has been for several months. At issue is manpower. The union claims the shift lists bear no relationship to how many firefighters are actually on duty at any given time because of training, sick leaves and other realities...they’re posting the duty rosters on the doors of Montreal’s firehalls to prove their point. Management says there sufficient men and equipment and the union is inventing things.
Who to believe? I’ve been following this issue for months. I know the management team well. They’re competent and caring, both of their men and their clients — us. But they’re trapped between what they know is needed to bring Montreal’s firefighting force up to strength and the budgetary restraints imposed on them by the Tremblay administration. In any situation such as this, something has to give. I happen to believe the only yielding surface is service — and Team Tremblay wants to paint the firefighters as the bad guys, just as they do the blue-collars and every other union. I’m no union lover, but this is ridiculous. Thank God the firefighters are going to arbitration — and too bad there’s nobody to force this city into trusteeship. Increasingly, I believe that’s where it should be.