Winnipeg budget 2026 fails firefighter staffing crisis

This is the third column in my series examining the City of Winnipeg’s 2026 budget. Today, we need to talk honestly about fire protection—because the numbers, the experiences, and the consequences can no longer be brushed aside with political spin.

In a recent conversation with United Fire Fighters of Winnipeg President Nick Kasper, a troubling picture emerged. It’s one the city’s own audits have been warning about for nearly two decades. The city knows the solutions. They’ve been given the data repeatedly. Yet here we are—still short firefighters, still bleeding money in overtime, and still delivering slower, riskier emergency responses to the very people paying for the service.

Kasper reminded me that Winnipeg once had more firefighters and more fire trucks in service than it does today. In fact, the service was larger in the 1970s than it is now. For fifty years, while Winnipeg expanded geographically, grew in population, and saw record-breaking call volumes, the fire service shrank. Even over the past 15 to 20 years, staffing has remained essentially unchanged despite Winnipeg now having the highest rate of fires per capita in North America. These aren’t union opinions—these are the City of Winnipeg’s own numbers.

In 2009, the City of Winnipeg’s internal audit recommended the service move toward a staffing ratio of 1.34 to 1. That number—already outdated due to increased call volumes, maternity leave, injuries, mental health claims, and the diversity of today’s workforce—was the minimum needed to safely staff trucks and reduce reliance on overtime. Today, Winnipeg sits at 1.29 to 1. Translated into real-world terms, that means we are short 59 firefighters from the recommended minimum staffing levels set nearly 20 years ago.

To break it down further, the city needs roughly 14.75 additional firefighters per shift just to reach the old 1.34 ratio. In the Budget 2026 plan, the city offered 2.5 per shift—a fraction of what is required. And if the city follows through on hiring 40 firefighters over the next four years, by 2029 Winnipeg will still be 19 firefighters short of the staffing target set two decades earlier. That target, as Kasper made clear, is no longer sufficient in 2025.

Meanwhile, the fire service continues to hold the system together with overtime that regularly exceeds $10 million a year. That overtime existed solely because staffing levels have not kept pace with demand. People are working multiple overtime shifts every tour, often entering hazardous structures or attending traumatic scenes while already exhausted.

This is where city council’s response becomes even more troubling. Instead of asking meaningful questions—such as whether the city is spending money in the right places or why its own internal audit recommendations were ignored for 15 years—council falls back on the easiest and most politically convenient question: “How will we pay for it?” That line, repeated every budget season, isn’t leadership. It’s a rhetorical shield, designed to create fear and shut down discussion. It’s also unbecoming of elected officials who should understand that resource allocation—not revenue—is the foundation of a responsible budget.

Because the truth is, Winnipeg doesn’t have a revenue problem. It has a spending problem. Under Mayor Scott Gillingham, property taxes have risen more than 36%, including this year’s proposed increase. On top of that, Winnipeggers are now paying a new waste collection fee—despite the service historically being covered by property taxes—making it, in every practical sense, a new tax. Water and sewer rates have climbed to the point that Winnipeg water is among the most expensive in Canada. Residents are paying more than ever, yet somehow the city claims it can’t fund the staffing levels its own experts recommended fifteen years ago.

What makes this even harder to accept is how council chooses to prioritize spending. They approved more than $100 million for a new community centre—a project that will inevitably exceed that figure—while failing to invest properly in fire staffing. Even the provincial NDP government contributed $3.4 million toward hiring firefighters, despite fire protection not being a provincial responsibility. The province showed leadership; the city did not match their commitment.

One of the most troubling details Kasper shared was that Winnipeg was the only fire department in Manitoba unable to send crews to assist with this year’s wildfires. Not a single firefighter. We didn’t have enough staff to keep all of our own trucks properly covered, let alone contribute to provincial support efforts. For a major city, that’s not just problematic—it’s embarrassing. A fire service so understaffed that it cannot assist in a provincial emergency should be a wake-up call for any council member who claims public safety is a priority.

Throughout our conversation, Kasper emphasized the human toll of understaffing. Firefighters are exhausted, burnt out, overwhelmed, and deeply concerned—not for their own comfort, but for the people they serve. When response times stretch to ten or fifteen minutes because trucks are out of service, firefighters arrive knowing the outcome may already be tragic. They carry the trauma of these situations into their personal lives. They see the consequences of system failures before anyone else. And they are pleading for the city to listen—not to them, but to its own data.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Hiring the firefighters that should have been hired years ago would cost less than the overtime the city already spends annually. A properly staffed service would reduce injuries, reduce WCB claims, reduce burnout, and improve response times. It would also ensure that Winnipeg can finally meet the standards expected of a major Canadian city.

Winnipeggers deserve a fire service capable of protecting them. They deserve a council that aligns spending with priorities. And they deserve transparency in budgeting instead of a repetition of excuses and delayed decisions.

We don’t have a revenue problem—we have a spending problem. And until this council is willing to accept that reality and prioritize the safety of its residents, Winnipeg will continue to fall behind on the most basic responsibility of government: protecting the lives of the people who pay the bills.

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