Grieving family calls on government to add 911 dispatchers to first responder grant program

OTTAWA — Days before Christmas in 2022, Georgia Kerhoas was home playing cards with family when her son Chris showed up unexpectedly with news that would upend all their lives.

Her son Lee Herriot, a longtime correctional services officer and then 911 dispatcher for the Toronto Fire Service who had recently gone on medical leave, had taken his own life. His passing would eventually be recognized as an on-duty death.

Her son’s work as a first responder has since been recognized countless times, including at a memorial for fallen firefighters in June. His name is etched onto both the Canadian Firefighters Memorial in Ottawa and the Fallen Firefighter Memorial in Toronto.

But in January, the grieving mother and her family got more bad news.

The federal Memorial Grant Program for First Responders — which recognizes the “service and sacrifice” of first responders who died as a result of their duties — would not recognize Herriot.

As a 911 dispatcher, Herriot did not fit the program’s definition of a first responder and his family was ineligible for the $300,000 grant, Public Safety Canada wrote to the family in a one-page refusal letter.

Now Herriot’s family is pushing the federal government to change the memorial grant’s terms and conditions so that emergency dispatchers — widely recognized as first responders in Canada — can be eligible.

“How a 911 dispatcher is not included in the definition…,” Herriot’s cousin Barry Casselman pondered in an interview. “A 911 dispatcher is the first first responder. How can they not be included in this?”

“I haven’t found one person that disagrees with this,” he added. “This legislation is not right to leave first responders without including 911 dispatchers on the list.”

Casselman has been pressuring the government for nearly one year to fix what he describes as an unacceptable technicality, trying to rally first responder unions, emergency services and his local MP Eric Duncan to push for change.

“Money doesn’t replace the person obviously, but it helps deal with things. It gives you peace of mind. It shows that Lee’s — or whoever’s — life was worth something,” he said.

Georgia Kerhoas, Herriot’s mother, and her brother Tim said the rejection felt like an insult to all 911 dispatchers, who are the first contact for most people in an emergency.

“It was kind of a slap in the face, not so much for the money, but just for the lack of recognition,” Tim Kerhoas told National Post.

Georgia Kerhoas said Herriot’s colleagues were just as surprised as the family by the rejection from the federal memorial grant on a “technicality.”

All three family members described Herriot as a proud first responder who took his work extremely to heart and had a deep desire to help others.

By speaking up about the exclusion of 911 dispatchers from the federal grant for first responders, they say they hope to help future families going through the same tragedy get the recognition their loved ones deserve.

“First responders are the first ones helping people in trouble,” Georgia Kerhoas said. “They mess up on their job, it’s not very good results.”

Set up by the Liberal government in 2018, the Memorial Grant for First Responders provides a $300,000 lump sum, tax-free payment to the families of first responders who died as a result of their duties.

Originally, it only included police officers, firefighters and paramedics. In 2020, then-Public Safety Minister Bill Blair amended the terms of the grant to also include correctional, parole and probation officers.

But 911 dispatchers remain ineligible even if their passing is ruled an on-duty death, such as Herriot’s.

In a statement, Public Safety Canada spokesperson Tim Warmington said the minister of emergency management defines the grant’s eligibility criteria by which the department must abide.

“There are no further changes imminent to the program’s eligibility criteria currently,” Warmington noted.

Since fiscal year 2022-2023, the department has received 434 applications for the memorial grant and has approved 427, Warmington said. That means only seven have been denied, including Herriot’s.

In an interview, Conservative MP Eric Duncan said the absence of 911 dispatchers in the grant’s terms and conditions is a “major gap” he wants to see fixed.

“The minister can make the simple change, change the eligibility…. without it needing to be legislative,” Duncan said.

“It’s a simple common-sense change. I don’t think anybody would disagree with, and I really hope they would consider doing it retroactively that could include Lee’s family.”

National Post

cnardi@postmedia.com

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