Just as an observer, the professional firefighter unions' objections to 'double hatters' always struck me as bizarre. The argument kept shifting from staffing and availability (what if a volunteer FF got tied up and couldn't meet his profession shift) to 'ensuring the standards of the profession, liability, risk to public safety, etc. - pretty much every evil. They not only take a position against it (which I kinda-sorta get because VFFs are non-union) actively advocating against it.
My former neighbour was a professional firefighter. He works about 10 days a month because of 24-hour shifts. For firefighters working for large services in the GTA and living in rurals, why not give back to your community for the other 20+ days? The benefits to the small rural departments is immense.
Thankfully, the Ontario government put an end to unions prohibiting double-hatting a few years ago.
