Should EMS be essential in Toronto

Should ambulance workers be allowed to strike?
City hall debates making EMS a full essential service
By Kris Scheuer
(Written Sept. 14 for Town Crier)

During the summer’s city strike many Torontonians were surprised to discover that EMS is not considered a full-fledged essential service.
Ambulances were still on the road, but 25 percent of frontline Emergency Medical Services workers were on the picket lines. 
Midtown councillor Michael Walker had a motion at the city’s Executive Committee asking the province to declare all of EMS an essential service. 
“It should be 100 percent not 75 percent,” Walker said. “The bottom line is these services will not be withdrawn from the public (in a strike).” 
Roberta Scott, public relations director for the Toronto Paramedics Association, agrees. 
“Either paramedics are a true essential service or they are not,” Scott told the committee. “On a daily basis we see there are not enough paramedics. 
“And then if you put us in a strike situation and take away 25 percent of us then it delays response time,” the former paramedic added. “That is a disaster waiting to happen.”

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Toronto day in the life 7

What I learned, saw, was told, heard in the city
By Kris Scheuer

So much to say because my latest observations of Toronto cover four days. So let’s get started.
Random act of kindness
Who says Torontonians are cold and unfeeling?
On Saturday Sept. 5, I was walking along College near Spadina when a stranger with a bouquet of daisies handed me a sunny yellow one. It was not just me he made smile with this random gesture, I saw he’d given one to a woman on a bike waiting at the corner as well.
Has anything like this happened to you in this city?

Dancing in the street
Who says Torontonians are uptight and can’t let loose?
This past Saturday night, my mom got back from California and called me to meet up. We went to the annual Fiera Street Festival in Little Italy around College and Clinton. On our way back from dinner we stopped to hear one of the live bands performing on the street, which was closed all weekend to cars and transit.
The song that stopped us in our tracks was Hey Baby (I wanna know if you’ll be my girl). We listened to the live music, sang out loud and danced in the street like fools. It was very fun to act silly and not care if people stared.