What is happening in Peterborough?
Paramedics in Peterborough, Canada, have voted by an overwhelming majority in favour of a strike mandate: of the 187 members who voted at Peterborough City-County Paramedics (PCCP), 99 percent (185 people) voted in favour. It is the first strike mandate in the service’s history. The union, Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 4911, which represents roughly 193 paramedics, sees the result as a clear signal of staff discontent.
According to the union, the dispute centres on four issues: more mental health support, staff retention and recruitment, wage parity with police and fire services, and a better work-life balance. The current allowance for mental health care is only 500 Canadian dollars per year, according to CUPE — enough for about three to three and a half therapy sessions. The union wants that allowance substantially increased.
How widespread is the problem?
The figures cited by the union point to structural staff attrition. Over three years, PCCP recruited 72 paramedics but lost 54 employees; in 2025 alone, 20 joined against 23 departures, often experienced colleagues moving to police, fire services or other work. The number of injury-related absences rose by 50 percent between 2024 and 2025, and in 2025, 14 percent of full-time paramedics were absent due to injury — caused by violence against responders, stress-related absence, post-traumatic symptoms and physical overload. Call volumes have also grown sharply over the past five years, partly driven by a rise in reports related to homelessness, mental health problems and drug use.
Peterborough is not alone. According to the Canadian magazine The Walrus, a 2021 CUPE survey found that 83 percent of paramedics in the province of Ontario said workload was harming their physical or mental health. A study of data from Ontario’s workplace injury insurer, the WSIB, found that between 2017 and 2021 paramedics had the highest share of psychological stress-injury claims of any public safety occupation. In the Manitoulin-Sudbury region, overtime rose eighteenfold between 2019 and 2023, and Toronto lost more than 500 paramedics over the same period. The service in Rainy River in northern Ontario has 31 paramedics, where 46 full-time equivalents are needed. Staff shortages, rising absence and psychosocial strain in ambulance services are signals also recognisable among emergency services outside Canada.
A strike mandate does not automatically mean a strike: it gives the union the right to file a strike notice if negotiations break down. The parties return to the table on 6 October 2026, with a mediator from the Ontario Labour Relations Board. Should those talks fail, the union can file a “no-board” notice, triggering a 17-day statutory period; a strike could then begin at the earliest around 25 October 2026. Because ambulance care in Ontario falls under specific legislation, emergency coverage (the 911 number) would remain guaranteed, but the number of ambulances available for deployment would fall by 44 to 46 percent — with longer waiting times expected for less urgent calls.
Context
That the situation in Peterborough is not an isolated incident is clear from broader reporting on Ontario’s ambulance sector: staff shortages, extreme overtime and rising injury and stress claims have been affecting the sector for years, from small regional services to Toronto’s urban service. Unions point to rising call volumes, violence against responders and limited access to mental health care as structural causes of the outflow of experienced staff.
Source: Paramedic burnout drives historic strike vote in Peterborough, 2 October 2026; additional: The Walrus
