By Sarah Wallace

PAGC commissioner to receive provincial protective services medal

May 30, 2013 | 6:22 AM

The Prince Albert Grand Council (PAGC) is announcing that one of their own will be awarded with the Saskatchewan Protective Services Medal.

Richard Kent, Commissioner for Emergency and Protective Services with the PAGC, will be awarded the medal on Thursday for his more than 25 years of service in protecting the safety and security of people and property in the province.

“I was a bit surprised, I was actually just on my way out to work with one of our communities in the spring that was flooding, James Smith, and I got a call and I pulled over on the side of the road and it was from Protocol
Saskatchewan informing me I’d be getting the medal, I was really surprised and quite happy,” Kent said.

Kent has worked with the PAGC for about 17 years, before that he worked for the Prince Albert Fire Department and before that he worked with the Provincial Fire Centre.
In all of his years with the PAGC, Kent said he’s seen not only good things but has also seen some unfortunate things.

“But you know, this is what happens in emergency protective services, we try to prepare our communities to handle any emergencies that they have and of course in Saskatchewan here we’ve got flooding as we’ve seen. We’ve been dealing with a lot more emergencies in the past 10 years then we’ve ever had before and that’s, you know, forest fires, smoke from forest fires, flooding, plough winds, tornadoes, unfortunately our communities have had to get a lot better at emergency response,” said Kent.

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When asked if anything stuck out in terms of some of the things he’s had to handle over the last 17 years, Kent said the volunteer firefighters was one.

“They selflessly volunteer to protect their communities and when I say ‘volunteer’ for these firefighters they don’t even get paid to attend the fire, so it’s a dangerous job and I have the utmost respect for them in our communities. I got paid when I worked for the Prince Albert Fire Department and I know how dangerous it is, and for them to volunteer their services for family, friends and community, to me, I just take my hat off to all of them, I’m so impressed with them,” Kent said.

In his time with the PAGC, Kent said he’s proud of their involvement with the Aboriginal Firefighter Competition where First Nations firefighters across the province compete for a chance to be the team to represent Saskatchewan at nationals.

“In the last 17 years … our PAGC teams have won not only provincials but nationals, I think it’s 12 times now they’ve come in first place, so we’re pretty proud of that fact. They’re some of the best firefighters from right across Canada,” Kent said.

He said these firefighters are also all volunteers and says this shows they know what they’re doing and are prepared to step up to the plate during any emergency their community might have.

Kent was very humble when speaking about the award and said the volunteer firefighters are the ones that deserve the recognition.

“It is nice for me to get that recognition but I want to make sure that the ones that are actually going into those burning buildings, into the dangerous sites are the ones that really get the recognition,” Kent said.

His role with the PAGC

Kent said his role with the PAGC is to look after any emergency in the community.

“I do the firefighter training, structural firefighter training; I do some specialty courses, river rescue, ice rescue. I do building inspections in our communities, fire inspections; I do all the fire investigations, any emergency response such as flooding, evacuations, fires,” Kent explained.

“Pretty much everything gets put on my plate if it involves emergency and it makes the job quite diverse and challenging,” he went on.

Kent has put in 33 years of service in this area of work.

swallace@panow.com

On Twitter: @sarahthesquid