HALIFAX — The family of a Nova Scotia firefighter who died in training says the results of a scathing audit of the province's main firefighters school is an important first step in ensuring future safety.
The $300,000 money-for-value audit by consultant 21FSP was released Tuesday by the provincial government. It was launched in June and stemmed from the death of firefighter Skyler Blackie during a training exercise at the Nova Scotia Firefighters School in March 2019.
The audit revealed an overall lack of safety, governance and accountability at the school and prompted Minister of Emergency Management Kim Masland to announce the province had severed its funding ties to the facility.
Blackie, who was a firefighter in Truro, N.S., died after the bottom of a rusted extinguisher blew off as he recharged it with propellant during a certification exam at the non-profit training facility located in Waverley, N.S. The extinguisher was one of several that had been donated to the school by a decommissioned refinery.
Blackie’s sister, Jessica Gillis, told reporters the government made the “right decision” to stop funding the school.
“We’ve known from day one that the changes were not going to happen under the current leadership of the school,” said Gillis, speaking alongside her parents and another brother. “We as a family are not surprised by the (audit) results …Hopefully we are moving in the right direction now.”
The audit report says the school faces a “crisis of confidence” among firefighters because of things such as outdated infrastructure that has fallen into disrepair and its lack of transparency following Blackie’s death, which it said was preventable.
It said the school handled the death poorly and caused “irreparable reputational damage from which … the school has not recovered.”
Gillis said the family had asked for but didn’t receive documents that should have been made publicly available on the provincial business registry, including financial statements, annual reports, bylaws and meeting minutes.
“That painted a very clear picture that there was no governance, that those documents weren’t being kept if they couldn’t provide them,” she said.
In April 2022, a provincial court judge found the school had breached occupational health and safety laws in Skyler Blackie's death. The school was fined and ordered to prepare a safety presentation documenting what went wrong.
Then, following a third-party audit in 2023, Nova Scotia’s Labour Department issued 41 new safety recommendations and noted 22 high-risk activities. It issued a stop work order in August 2024 that was lifted a month later, however the school shut down its training operations in June of this year while the audit was underway.
Masland promised the audit’s findings would result in change.
“The results of the audit are clear and they are appalling,” the minister said. “The Nova Scotia Firefighters School cannot safely and effectively operate as it is.”
Masland said a steering committee for firefighter training will be established in the coming weeks to oversee an interim training plan for the province's firefighters that will be ready in the fall. A more comprehensive long-term training model will eventually be put in place, once the results of an ongoing fire services review are available, she said.
Masland was asked whether the province would move to standardize firefighting training through legislation as the Blackie family has asked for, but she declined to be specific.
However, the minister noted that the province’s fire services haven’t had a “true home” in terms of a government department for regulatory purposes.
“We will be looking at how we proceed further,” she said.
A survey included in the report found that 70 per cent of over 700 firefighters and fire service leaders, along with eight of the school’s board of directors who were asked, ranked the facility as the province’s least effective training provider. Only 52 per cent reported they were satisfied with the training it provides.
The school did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 5, 2025.
Keith Doucette, The Canadian Press
