Niverville Council has a bone to pick with the College of Paramedics of Manitoba.

According to Mayor Myron Dyck, the CPMB is in favour of a company's assertion that secondary insurance is purchased for fire department personnel. 

“We’re going to lobby our Association of Manitoba Municipalities Board to go to the province and say ‘this needs to be changed, please do something through legislation so that an insurance company can’t be making this kind of claim’.”

Dyck says the additional cost to taxpayers would be $550 per firefighter and first responder to be insured annually.

“It’s a money grab. It’s a total money grab and the residents have better things to do with their tax dollars than give it to an insurance company.”

Dyck says the town’s insurance has covered fire department personnel until now, and the only thing driving this proposed change is the insurance company’s insistence.

“They’re saying, ‘we don’t recognize that other policy. We need you to buy our policy so that your first responders can be covered’,” explains Dyck. “And we’re saying, ‘why are we paying twice?'”