The chair of Hamilton's community services committee wants to know why the city offers a special program to volunteer firefighters to help them prepare for hiring tests.

Councillor Sam Merulla said internal sources in the human resources and fire departments confirmed to him that the city has a formal program available only for volunteer firefighters that helps prepare them for the testing and interview process used by Hamilton to hire full-time firefighters.

The issue relates to 30 conditional offers of employment extended recently as part of a full-time firefighter hiring campaign launched by the city in the spring.

Merulla received a complaint recently from a senior fire department official who alleged that the city's hiring practices for full-time firefighters are discriminatory, because they include residency restrictions and different scoring standards between the two categories of applicants.

Eighteen of the 30 offers -- 60 per cent of the new hires -- come from the existing pool of volunteer firefighters who cover places such as Waterdown, Ancaster and rural areas of Hamilton. The city is contractually obliged to hire a minimum of 25 per cent of new full-time firefighters from the volunteer pool.

Volunteer firefighters must live in those areas of the city that receive volunteer service. They can't live in the old City of Hamilton.

Earlier this week, Merulla confirmed that volunteer firefighters were required to score at least 70 per cent on the written component of the test, but applicants from outside the geographic areas served by volunteer firefighters were required to score a minimum of 85 per cent on the test.

Merulla said he's now concerned there's an added perception of bias because those people who run the testing preparation program for the volunteer firefighters are also involved in the interviewing process for full-time firefighters.

The program, Merulla noted, prepares volunteer firefighters "for the testing -- and testing, by the way, where their standards are lower.

"So not only are they being prepared for the test, but then the expectations for them are lower than the mainstream applicants," he said.

If the city offers a preparatory program for volunteer firefighters, it should also be offering it to all interested applicants, Merulla said.

"We have 350,000 people (in Hamilton) who are not eligible for this program simply because they don't live in a suburban area," the Ward 4 councillor said.

Merulla stressed that his focus is on the city's human resources policies, not the volunteer firefighters.

"I have a great deal of respect for the volunteer firefighters," said Merulla. "I'm not targeting the volunteer firefighters.

"My point is someone should not be selected based on their residency. It should be open to all," he said. "Right now, we have a discriminatory policy which only allows opportunity to exist based on where you live as opposed to how qualified you are."

A spokesperson for the city's human resources department could not be reached for comment.

Merulla also indicated he was told that once applicants reached the interview stage for the recent hiring campaign, scores from the written tests were not considered in the selection process.

"Once you got to the interview, all the testing was irrelevant," said Merulla.

"It was based on the interview to go to the next phase, which was getting hired."

A spokesman for the Greater Hamilton Volunteer Firefighters Association declined to comment until the association has put together an official media release.

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