Province issues stop-work order for Nova Scotia Firefighters School

August 17, 2024

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Province issues stop-work order for Nova Scotia Firefighters School

The Nova Scotia Firefighters School has been issued a stop-work order by the province, which means classes at the Waverley facility have been suspended indefinitely.

The school made the announcement on Facebook on Friday. It said the third-party safety organization it hired to conduct an audit found issues with the school’s “safety paperwork.”

“Unfortunately for students of our ongoing classes, this means that, in accordance with [Occupational Health and Safety] and the Department of Labour, we will be putting our classes on hold until new forms can be created and policies adjusted to reflect those changes,” the school wrote in the post.

The announcement comes just days after the family of Skyler Blackie, a firefighter who died following a routine training procedure at the school in March 2019, learned he had informed his instructor the expired fire extinguisher he was using had rust on it, but was told to use it anyway.

The fire extinguisher exploded and Blackie died 11 days later in hospital. He was 28.

Following Blackie’s death, a court case resulted in the school admitting in 2022 that it failed to perform routine inspections and keep adequate records.

CBC News has contacted the school’s executive director, John Cunningham, but he did not immediately return a request for comment Friday.

In a statement to CBC News on Friday, the Department of Labour, Skills and Immigration said Nova Scotia firefighters deserve to be trained in a safe facility.

The department said no students are currently enrolled in entry-level training courses at the school and the province is continuing to work with the facility to address safety concerns.

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It said the department has been working with the school since it first requested a third-party assessment of the worksite last year.

The late Skyler Blackie, 28, of Debert, N.S., had been a volunteer firefighter since he was 18 years old. (Town of Truro)

Earlier this week, Blackie’s family learned the school received 41 new safety recommendations as a result of a third-party review. Nova Scotia’s Department of Labour, Skills and Immigration said 22 “high-risk activities” were noted by Occupation Health and Safety officers in July.

“When compliance was not fully achieved, we issued a stop-work order on Aug. 16 that prohibits any high-risk training activities. The stop-work order will remain in place, and the activities cannot resume, until compliance is achieved,” the department said in Friday’s statement.

“We have been working closely with the Blackie family since our initial workplace investigation into Skyler’s death. We have been in touch with them on all our safety work including the stop-work order.”

‘Boiling it down to paperwork’

Blackie’s sister, Jessica Gillis, told CBC News on Friday that she has mixed feelings about the situation.

“On the one hand, I’m thrilled that there’s going to be no students there for the foreseeable future and knowing that there’s no risk of anybody else being harmed,” Gillis said.

“On the other hand, I feel like their statement is brushing over what is really going on. They’re boiling it down to paperwork but to the best of my knowledge … that paperwork includes creating policy and procedures. And policies and procedures need to be tangible things, they need to be things that can be communicated so that when a crisis does happen, they know exactly what to do.”

white text on a black screen — The Nova Scotia Firefighters School announced in a Facebook post on Friday, Aug. 16, that it has suspended classes. (Nova Scotia Firefighters School/Facebook)

Gillis said the decision to stop classes doesn’t go far enough. She wants Cunningham to step down.

See also Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s tough Bronx persona is under fresh scrutiny with a resurfaced childhood nickname from her suburban upstate New York upbringing casting doubt on that publicly portrayed image. The progressive champion’s latest spat with President Donald Trump over the Iran strikes again called into question her true upbringing when she declared on X she was a “Bronx girl" to make her a point against the president. The 35-year-old congresswoman wrote in part on X: "I’m a Bronx girl. You should know that we can eat Queens boys for breakfast. Respectfully," she said, referring to the president’s upbringing in Queens as she called for his impeachment over his decision to bypass Congress in authorizing U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. Ocasio-Cortez was born in the Bronx but moved to Yorktown – which is nearly an hour outside New York City -- when she was 5 years old and went on to attend Yorktown High School where she graduated in 2007. She was considered an accomplished student there and well thought of by teacher Michael Blueglass, according to a 2018 report by local media outlet Halston Media News. “There, known by students and staff as ‘Sandy,’ she was a member of the Science Research Program taught by Michael Blueglass," the report states. “She was amazing," Blueglass said, per the report. “Aside from her winning one of the top spots and going to the [Intel International Science and Engineering Fair], she was just one of the most amazing presenters in all of the years I've been at Yorktown. Her ability to take complex information and explain it to all different levels of people was fantastic." After high school, Ocasio-Cortez attended Boston University, where she majored in economics and international relations, per the report. Ocasio-Cortez’s “Sandy" nickname — which carries a more suburban and preppy tone — appears to undercut her politically crafted image as a tough, inner-city fighter, one she has portrayed since her famous 2018 congressional campaign where she eventually ousted former 10-terms Congressman Joe Crowley. New York GOP Assemblyman Matt Slater, who now represents Yorktown, added to the scrutiny of Ocasio-Cortez’s persona in the wake of her brash with Trump and released images of Ocasio-Cortez from his high school yearbook. He claimed he and the rising Democratic star attended Yorktown High School at the same time when she was a freshman and he was a senior. "I saw the attacks on the president and her [Ocasio-Cortez] claims that she's a big, tough Bronx girl," said Slater. "To sit there and say that she’s a Bronx girl is just patently ridiculous." "Everybody in our community knows this is just a bold-face lie," said Slater on "Fox & Friends First" last week. "She grew up in Yorktown, she was on my track team." "She's lying about her background, she's lying about her upbringing," Slater claimed. Slater’s post sent social media ablaze and prompted Ocasio-Cortez to respond after an image if her family’s home was posted online. “I’m proud of how I grew up and talk about it all the time," Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X Friday responding to the post. “My mom cleaned houses and I helped. We cleaned tutors’ homes in exchange for SAT prep." “Growing up between the Bronx and Yorktown deeply shaped my views of inequality & it’s a big reason I believe the things I do today!"

“Our fight isn’t over … I think the statement they’re releasing, it still shows that they’re not holding accountability for a lot of things and I think without new leadership, nothing is going to change,” she said.

Blackie’s family had been pushing for changes to be made at the school since his death. Blackie was from Debert, N.S., and had been a volunteer firefighter since he was 18.