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THUNDER BAY — A move by the Ontario government will make it easier for municipalities to find enough lifeguards to keep their pools open and offer aquatics programming.
The province is proposing to reduce the minimum allowable age for lifeguards, assistant lifeguards, and aquatic instructors/coaches from 16 to 15.
According to a posting on the government's regulatory registry, this is intended to address staffing shortages and retention issues in the aquatic sector.
It will also align the province's pool regulations with those of the Lifesaving Society, which recently reduced the age for enrolling in its national lifeguard course to 15.
The City of Thunder Bay struggled with a shortage of staff last year, when it was forced to curtail operating hours at some locations.
"Many municipalities will welcome that with open arms ... that would help just in retaining staff, and having the staff just being able to start right when they're trained rather than having a waiting period," said Kim Begin, the city's supervisor of aquatics, wellness, children and youth.
The city has already taken steps on its own to increase the size of its qualified labour pool, such as raising the starting wage for lifeguards from $15.71 hourly to $19.35.
This year is the first year that all elements of the new recruitment and retention strategy will be rolled out.
"Lifeguards have some courses paid for them. research when they expire, we offer an incentive for bathing suits for staff who are giving swimming lessons, and we've just got ongoing initiatives throughout the year, and new advertising plans," Begin said.
She said these initiatives are already paying dividends, but there remains a challenge in finding people who can work during daytime hours.
"We don't currently have enough daytime lifeguards because of people's school schedules and other demands ... The new staff coming out of courses are young and eager, and really want to work. This shows great potential for the future where we are retaining them and doing everything we can to keep them in place and working, so that when they enter university and have more daytime flexibility, we'll have a pool of candidates to address the daytime closures that we often face."
Begin said that at present, the city expects it will be able to operate all its outdoor and indoor facilities with normal pre-COVID operating hours.
"[But recruitment] is an ongoing thing that won't be final in 2023. I'm sure this is a strategy that we will be facing for many years to come."
