THUNDER BAY — Superior North EMS paramedics in communities outside Thunder Bay will be in a legal strike position Wednesday if a new deal isn’t reached by then.
Officials with Unifor, the union that represents the district paramedics, and the land ambulance service are slated to be back at the bargaining table on Nov. 24 and 25. Both sides say they’re looking for a deal, with the union citing wages not being high enough to recruit and retain enough workers to regional communities.
“We start bargaining with them on Monday morning again, and our goal is to get a deal that we can, obviously, recommend and bring back to our members to ratify and address some of these issues,” said Kari Jefford, the president of the district paramedics’ Unifor local.
“We’re looking forward to getting a … freely-negotiated, fair deal in place,” Shane Muir, the chief of the EMS service, said. “And have those talks with that union so that they can bring forward their proposals and we can work through a deal.”
The district paramedics’ previous contract expired at the end of October 2024 and the two sides have been going back and forth over the past several months. Should a strike happen Wednesday, Jefford said, they will still respond to calls (paramedics are an essential service) but won’t perform other more administrative-based functions.
“We’re moving towards a deal, not a strike,” she said.
Outside Thunder Bay, Superior North EMS primarily serves communities along the North Shore, the Greenstone area and points east.
The union held a noon-hour rally in front of the EMS headquarters building on Junot Street in Thunder Bay Friday afternoon, with the message of “care can’t wait.” Numerous vehicles honked in support as they drove down the busy thoroughfare.
“Every day, district paramedics travel hundreds of kilometres across northern Ontario to respond to emergencies — they work 12-hour shifts followed by 12 hours of mandatory on-call where they must respond to 911 calls in under eight minutes, sometimes multiple times through the night,” Jefford said at the rally.
“They are redeployed far from their home bases, they’re driving into remote communities, they’re living in EMS stations for days at a time, and they are doing it short-staffed, burnt out and without the support they need to keep themselves and their patients safe.”
Muir told Newswatch the service has made improvements to regional staffing, hiring at least 14 new paramedics for district operations in 2025 and that all previously-existing full-time permanent vacancies are filled. He pointed to relatively recent recruitment incentives like a $4,000 bonus for full-time work served (which can be claimed twice) and educational grants as being successful.
(UPDATE: Superior North EMS subsequently provided updated information that said there are three full-time paramedic vacancies in the region, with two expected to be filled soon, and two vacancies in paramedicine).
The union charges there are full-time positions still vacant in places like Marathon, which, if filled, would create a 24-hour base, and in community paramedicine.
Muir said a number of part-time positions still need to be filled, however they continue to prioritize recruitment and that “there’s a lot of initiatives in place,” including upcoming hiring drives.
“We are on the right track in that regard.”
Jefford said the region is still understaffed and that, while the $4,000 incentives are “great,” they don’t do much to keep paramedics in the district for long, with many transferring to Thunder Bay. She added that some long-tenured ones have also recently left.
“We have only … about 68 to 70 medics,” she said. “We should be well over 100.”
“There are a lot of barriers to maintaining medics in the district.”
Muir said district staffing has been a longstanding issue in the service, “and we’re always looking for ways to support that.”
Jefford said the situation “is beyond dire.”
“We have been suggesting for years all sorts of different things that we could be doing to maintain our medics and recruit to the district and it’s falling on deaf ears,” she said.
“We are beyond a crisis now.”
