Ontario Puts $7.1 Million Into Training For First Responders And Veterans

OAKVILLE – November 10, 2026

The Ontario government is investing more than $7.1 million across four training projects for first responders, veterans and military families, the province announced on Monday. The largest single share goes to firefighters: more than $3.45 million to the Ontario Professional Fire Fighters Association to give 1,550 firefighters advanced Emergency Medical Responder skills, in a project the release says is focused on rural, northern and Indigenous communities. In total, the four projects are expected to reach more than 1,800 workers and jobseekers in policing, emergency response, security and technology.

The announcement came from the Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development, as part of the sixth round of the Skills Development Fund Training Stream. “When our communities need them most, first responders are there to keep Ontario families safe, just as our veterans have dedicated their lives to protecting our country and way of life,” Labour Minister Trevor Jones said in the release. Solicitor General Michael Kerzner added that the government will “always have their backs,” by ensuring firefighters, police officers, veterans and other frontline workers have the training and support they need. The projects will provide specialized training, employment supports and wellness resources, the province says, to first responders, veterans, military families and other frontline workers.

The firefighter project is the one with the clearest Northern Ontario reach. Called “First Response Ready,” it will equip 1,550 firefighters with advanced Emergency Medical Responder skills, combining hands-on training with augmented and virtual reality technology and partnerships with organizations such as the Canadian Red Cross. Association president Greg Horton said the funding “will turn that investment into real frontline capacity by giving fire fighters stronger emergency medical response skills, developing instructors within our fire services and improving the care we can provide when our communities need us most.” The reason this matters more in the north than in the south is built into how northern emergencies work. In rural, northern and Indigenous communities, the fire department is frequently the first service on scene at a medical call, sometimes by a wide margin, and the care given in those first minutes is the care the patient gets until an ambulance arrives. Raising 1,550 firefighters to an advanced medical responder standard is, in those communities, a direct upgrade to the emergency medical system itself — and the release’s own framing points the project at exactly those communities.

The second project is about the toll the work takes. The Police Association of Ontario, in partnership with Canada Beyond the Blue, is receiving $747,000 to strengthen the health, wellness and resilience of Ontario’s policing community. The money funds the Beyond the Blue Workplace Resilience Program Suite, which will give police members and their families access to clinical supports, care navigators, trauma-informed leadership development and occupational therapy-informed return-to-work planning, along with a Return to Purpose Guide for members navigating recovery and reintegration after workplace injury, trauma or operational stress. A new digital learning hub is meant to widen access across the province, with particular attention to police members and families in remote and underserved communities — a phrase that, in Ontario policing, describes a great many northern detachments and the families posted to them.

The remaining two projects are aimed at the military community. Coding for Veterans is receiving $1,995,000 to provide 100 members of the Canadian Armed Forces community — including reservists, spouses and family members — with tuition-free online training in software development, cybersecurity and next-generation artificial intelligence, delivered provincewide at roughly 650 hours of instructor-supported training per course, with mentorship, career coaching, resume development and job-search assistance. Caliburn Solutions Limited is receiving $987,800 to help 60 retired military personnel, military family members and retired first responders prepare for careers in Ontario’s security sector, with Security Guard Licence training, advanced certifications, mentorship, paid work placements and connections to employers, aimed particularly at individuals with disabilities and those in rural and remote communities, with participants pointed toward work as security guards, identity fraud specialists and security systems specialists.

The province also used the announcement to restate how this round of the Skills Development Fund was run, because the fund’s earlier rounds drew scrutiny. The release says the Round 6 projects were evaluated and selected through a strengthened program aligned with the Auditor General’s 2025 program review: employment outcomes will be tracked at three, six and twelve months, applications must disclose the use of registered lobbyists and consultants with the information verified against Ontario’s Lobbyists Registry, and project screening, risk assessment and evaluation have been tightened. That is the province’s own account of its process, offered as context for how these four projects were chosen.

What the release does not do is name specific northern communities, fire services or police services that will receive training seats, and no breakdown of the 1,550 firefighter places by region is given. For Northern Ontario, the story for now is the direction of the money rather than a local allocation: the biggest project in the package is aimed by design at rural, northern and Indigenous communities, and the police wellness project names remote and underserved communities as a focus. Whether that translates into named northern cohorts will be visible as the projects roll out.