Union president Jordan Lean says lost-time injuries rose 50 per cent as veteran paramedics leave the profession
Paramedics with Peterborough City-County Paramedics (PCCP) have delivered a 99 per cent strike mandate, with 185 of 187 voting members authorizing their union to issue strike notice if bargaining fails, as the service grapples with a wave of departures and a sharp rise in workplace injuries.
Jordan Lean, president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 4911, which represents roughly 193 paramedics across the City and County of Peterborough, said the vote reflects a service under mounting strain. Bargaining has continued through most of 2026, with the union's core demands centred on mental health supports, retention, recruitment and pay equity with police and fire services.
"We're hiring, but we're also losing them as quickly as we're hiring them," Lean said in an interview. Over the past three years, the service hired 72 paramedics but lost 54. Last year alone, it hired 20 and lost 23.
Retention crisis erodes frontline experience
Lean said the losses are hollowing out the service's depth of experience as veteran paramedics leave for police, fire or other trades, replaced by newer graduates who have not yet developed the pattern recognition built from years on the road. The strain echoes what other Ontario services have described as paramedics pushed to the max by chronic understaffing, a pattern Lean said extends well beyond Peterborough: some northern Ontario services have posted 20 to 30 vacancies and received as few as two applicants, pointing to a broader decline in people entering paramedic programs provincewide.
Call volumes in the Peterborough area have climbed significantly over the past five years, a trend Lean linked to a growing homelessness population and associated mental health and substance-use calls, a pattern that has begun spreading from the city into the surrounding county.
Injuries up 50 per cent, mental health coverage called inadequate
According to CUPE Local 4911, workplace injuries among its members rose 50 per cent between 2024 and 2025, and 14 per cent of full-time paramedics were off work due to injury in 2025 alone. Lean said much of that spike stems from violence against paramedics, including being struck or spit on by patients, incidents that do not always result in lost time. The lost-time cases, by contrast, are overwhelmingly mental health related: stress leaves and post-traumatic stress disorder, alongside a smaller share of musculoskeletal injuries from lifting and awkward patient transfers.
The union's current benefit package provides $500 a year in mental health coverage, enough for roughly three to three-and-a-half therapy sessions. Lean said the union wants that coverage expanded to better match the documented rise in burnout and PTSD among members, a gap that mirrors concerns raised in Ontario's legislation supporting first responders with PTSD and in the sector's own new CSA standard addressing mental health for the paramedic community.
"Friday nights were busy five years ago," Lean said. "Now you just get run for 12, 13 hours, no meal breaks, and you finish your shift completely drained."
Bargaining deadline looms in October
The parties return to the table October 6 with a mediator from the Ontario Labour Relations Board. Lean said the two sides have not come close to a deal through open bargaining this year. If October 6 produces no movement, the union could file a no-board notice, triggering a 17-day notice period and opening the door to a strike as early as October 25.
Any work stoppage would unfold under an essential ambulance services agreement negotiated between the union, the County of Peterborough and the Ontario Labour Relations Board under the Ambulance Services Collective Bargaining Act, 2001. Lean said that would mean a 44 to 46 per cent reduction in active ambulances, with 911 coverage maintained at a reduced level and lower-priority calls facing longer waits, particularly during high-volume periods such as Friday nights.
Lean described the strike mandate as the first in Peterborough County Paramedics' history, calling it a sign of a historic level of engagement from the membership. "Our big push this year is to get a contract that at least improves our work-life balance for the membership," he said, adding that the union also wants to work with management to add paramedics and ambulances to meet demand that has grown steadily since the pandemic.
Peterborough City-County Paramedics did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
