Form - Volunteer Participation Annual Confirmation

One confirmation per volunteer or paid-on-call member per calendar year, prepared from the department’s attendance system and signed by the fire chief or deputy chief. It records how much of the department’s activity (emergency responses and training) the member took part in.

Why it matters to the member. In some provinces and territories, a volunteer firefighter qualifies for presumptive workers’ compensation coverage for occupational cancers and heart injury only if they can show a minimum level of participation in the department’s activities in each year of the qualifying period, confirmed in writing by the chief (J11 Volunteer Firefighters; J32 Workers' Compensation and Firefighter Presumptions). The threshold, the activities that count, the way participation is calculated and who must sign all differ by jurisdiction. Years later, when a member is ill, this record may be the only evidence of their service, and a department that does not keep it can cost a member their claim. Even where no participation threshold applies, the confirmation is the department’s evidence of each member’s exposure history, which the Occupational Cancer Prevention, Exposure Tracking and Screening Program relies on.

Who completes it. The station or district officer prepares it from the attendance records by January 31 for the previous year; the member reviews it and may add a comment; the fire chief or deputy chief signs it; the records administrator files the original in the member’s service file (not the medical file) and gives the member a copy. Where the jurisdiction’s compensation board prescribes its own form for this confirmation, complete that form as well and attach it.

1. Count from records, not memory. Use the attendance system’s report for the calendar year. If attendance was not recorded for part of the year, say so in the source field and record what evidence was used (sign-in sheets, incident reports, training rosters).
2. Treat leave fairly. Where a member was on approved leave (medical, parental, deployment), record the leave dates; calculate participation over the period the member was available, unless your jurisdiction’s rule says otherwise, and note the method.
3. Never leave a year blank. If a member was inactive, complete the form anyway and record why; a gap with no record is worse for the member than a record of low participation.
4. Keep it out of the medical file. This is a service record. It contains no health information.
5. Retain it for the long term. Keep participation confirmations for the member’s service plus at least 30 years, alongside exposure records (Policy - Records, Privacy and Health Information), or longer where your jurisdiction’s retention rule requires it (J09 Records Retention).
6. Correct errors openly. If a member disputes a count, the officer reviews the source records with the member; corrections are made by a dated amendment signed by the chief, never by replacing the original.

• Activities of the department. The emergency responses and scheduled training sessions that count toward participation, as the jurisdiction’s rule defines them.
• Participation threshold. The minimum share of activities a volunteer must attend each year to qualify for a presumption, where a jurisdiction sets one.
• Presumptive coverage. A rule in workers’ compensation law that presumes certain diseases in firefighters are work-related once service and other conditions are met.
• Qualifying period. The minimum years of service a presumption requires for a given disease.

This chapter relies on the following legal requirements, which differ by province and territory. Check your jurisdiction’s section on each topic page before adopting it.