Province cuts ties with embattled Nova Scotia Firefighters School
'The results are clear, and they are appalling,' says Minister of Emergency Management Kim Masland
The province says it is ending its relationship with the embattled Nova Scotia Firefighters School following an audit that found serious safety and policy gaps.
The provincial government's comprehensive value-for-money audit of the school was commissioned in June to help ensure the safety of students and staff and stemmed from the death of Skyler Blackie, who was killed during a training exercise in 2019.
In a news release Tuesday, the province's Emergency Management Department said the review found a number of issues, including a breakdown in safety accountability, lack of stakeholder engagement, systemic and governance issues and inadequate governance and oversight of the executive director.
The audit noted the public's trust in the facility has eroded and firefighters have lost confidence in it.
As well, it revealed a failure to uphold a culture of safety. There were "serious, unaddressed safety-related deficiencies; a lack of strategic planning; and a decline in infrastructure," the release said.
"The results are clear, and they are appalling. We are ending our relationship with the school and will set up an interim training plan for firefighters right away," Minister of Emergency Management Kim Masland said in the statement.
"Our firefighters respond when other people's lives are on the line. They need and deserve, at minimum, a safe place to train. We're going to ensure they have one."
The province had been providing funding to the school through an annual grant of $190,000, which was suspended in 2024, and through vehicle insurance levy funds totalling roughly $400,000 annually, according to Deputy Minister of Emergency Management Sandra McKenzie.
The province issued a stop-work order last August, which was lifted the following month, but the school then shut down once again in June while the review was taking place.
The release said a steering committee for firefighter training will be established in the coming weeks to oversee an interim training plan and to guide the work on a long-term, comprehensive training model for firefighters once the results of a broader fire services review are in. The goal is to have the interim training available by fall.
The broader fire services governance review is a separate review being led by the Fire Service Association of Nova Scotia and focusing on governance, operations, communications, funding and more.
More than 680 firefighters from across the province participated in the value-for-money audit — which was conducted by 21FSP Advisory Inc. for $300,000 — along with 52 fire service leaders and eight members of the board of directors of the Nova Scotia Firefighters School.
The school did not immediately return a request for comment Tuesday.
It has been under the microscope since Blackie, a full-time firefighter with the Truro Fire Service, died in March 2019 after the expired fire extinguisher he was using exploded during a certification exam.
A court case resulted in the school admitting in 2022 that it failed to perform routine inspections and keep adequate records.
The Blackie family learned last year that the training facility received 41 new safety recommendations as a result of a third-party review. Nova Scotia's Labour Department said 22 "high-risk activities" were noted by Occupation Health and Safety officers in July 2024.
In the statement, the Blackies said the results of the audit were painful to read, "but they reflect what we have known all along: the Nova Scotia Firefighters School is not safe."
"We are heartbroken that it took such a loss to bring this truth to light, but we are incredibly grateful to the Government of Nova Scotia for listening, for taking our concerns seriously, and for taking action," it reads.
The school is a non-profit with executive director John Cunningham at the head. Cunningham sits on the board that runs the school, alongside fire service members from across Nova Scotia.
Cunningham has previously rejected calls for his resignation.
The release said there has been no substantive change in the Nova Scotia Firefighters School board structure or governance in more than 20 years.
