Thrifty shopper saves bundle
When Gillian Macdonald went on a shopping spree with an Ottawa resale expert Deborah Haig to revamp her style cheaply, she had a few surprises.
The Times paired Macdonald, a justice studies Algonquin student, with Haig on Oct. 22 with the goal of matching her clothing to her skin tone and personal style. The inspiration was Kate Moss and New York City girl.
“She had some cool insights,” said Macdonald, 19, of the shopping expert.
Haig is the author of The Naked Shopper, a book dedicated to guide readers through the various steps of finding their personal style in a fun and fabulous way for cheap.
Resale shopping consists of seeking for used items in thrifts shops or consignment stores.
This particular type of shopping is how Haig managed to save money through the years while raising her two sons and buy a house. She wants others to be able to do the same.
“I put everything in there that could be useful,” she said of her book.
She doesn’t want people to overspend. “It’s all about saving. I never pay full price,” said Haig.
The single mother of two full-grown sons knows about students. She’s hosted over 30 international students in her home for the past 12 years.
“I help give them a good start in Canada in a family environment that is secure,” she said.
“All students are on a budget,” said Haig. They used to resale shop out of necessity, but now they also do it because they want to look good, she said.
Macdonald didn’t think one could find designer clothes in a thrift shop. But on the shopping spree with Haig, she found a brand new little black Versace dress for $15.
Macdonald is the youngest of her seven siblings and has had many passed down clothes over the years. She isn’t a fan of resale shopping and prefers buying her own new clothes at stores like H&M or Garage.
“I’ve never found anything that suited me,” she said of her past experience in thrift shops.
The resale expert shopper said the most important thing to remember when shopping is to have a purpose.
“Don’t get distracted while shopping so you don’t get away from the mission,” she said.
Haig has been resale shopping for the past 20 years. “I’m a shopaholic,” she said with a smile.
When working at Loyalist College as an assistant to the dean and desktop publishing professor, Haig was considered the best dressed woman in the college, she said. She used to make her own clothes and repurpose pieces such an old coat to make it funkier.
The Naked Shopper author also relates to students because she is young at heart.
“I have a younger spirit that doesn’t allow me to go beyond a certain age,” she said.
Typically, students want to look good on any given occasion.
Resale shopping is a way to have “accessible fashion for everyone,” said Haig. Students are already challenged financially to build their future, so this is a way to save money for them, she added.
They can look amazing and pay next to nothing, said Haig.
Even though Haig is a regular resale shopper, she also visits retail stores once in a while.
“I always go to the sales section,” she said of the first thing she does upon entering a store.
If there are deep discounts, savings still happen even if it’s not resale, she said.
Students have a lot of expenditures and her book proposes tips and tricks to reduce spending in at least one of the categories: clothing.
Macdonald’s father resale shops often. She accompanies him sometimes. “It’s fun to look,” she said.
She prefers looking at old furniture and dishes, she said, even if she still lives at home. She rarely looks at used clothes but remains open-minded, just in case.
“It’s awesome to find good deals on stuff that we’re interested in,” said Macdonald.
Check out our website for Haig and Macdonald’s shopping spree video.
The Times paired Macdonald, a justice studies Algonquin student, with Haig on Oct. 22 with the goal of matching her clothing to her skin tone and personal style. The inspiration was Kate Moss and New York City girl.
“She had some cool insights,” said Macdonald, 19, of the shopping expert.
Haig is the author of The Naked Shopper, a book dedicated to guide readers through the various steps of finding their personal style in a fun and fabulous way for cheap.
Resale shopping consists of seeking for used items in thrifts shops or consignment stores.
This particular type of shopping is how Haig managed to save money through the years while raising her two sons and buy a house. She wants others to be able to do the same.
“I put everything in there that could be useful,” she said of her book.
She doesn’t want people to overspend. “It’s all about saving. I never pay full price,” said Haig.
The single mother of two full-grown sons knows about students. She’s hosted over 30 international students in her home for the past 12 years.
“I help give them a good start in Canada in a family environment that is secure,” she said.
“All students are on a budget,” said Haig. They used to resale shop out of necessity, but now they also do it because they want to look good, she said.
Macdonald didn’t think one could find designer clothes in a thrift shop. But on the shopping spree with Haig, she found a brand new little black Versace dress for $15.
Macdonald is the youngest of her seven siblings and has had many passed down clothes over the years. She isn’t a fan of resale shopping and prefers buying her own new clothes at stores like H&M or Garage.
“I’ve never found anything that suited me,” she said of her past experience in thrift shops.
The resale expert shopper said the most important thing to remember when shopping is to have a purpose.
“Don’t get distracted while shopping so you don’t get away from the mission,” she said.
Haig has been resale shopping for the past 20 years. “I’m a shopaholic,” she said with a smile.
When working at Loyalist College as an assistant to the dean and desktop publishing professor, Haig was considered the best dressed woman in the college, she said. She used to make her own clothes and repurpose pieces such an old coat to make it funkier.
The Naked Shopper author also relates to students because she is young at heart.
“I have a younger spirit that doesn’t allow me to go beyond a certain age,” she said.
Typically, students want to look good on any given occasion.
Resale shopping is a way to have “accessible fashion for everyone,” said Haig. Students are already challenged financially to build their future, so this is a way to save money for them, she added.
They can look amazing and pay next to nothing, said Haig.
Even though Haig is a regular resale shopper, she also visits retail stores once in a while.
“I always go to the sales section,” she said of the first thing she does upon entering a store.
If there are deep discounts, savings still happen even if it’s not resale, she said.
Students have a lot of expenditures and her book proposes tips and tricks to reduce spending in at least one of the categories: clothing.
Macdonald’s father resale shops often. She accompanies him sometimes. “It’s fun to look,” she said.
She prefers looking at old furniture and dishes, she said, even if she still lives at home. She rarely looks at used clothes but remains open-minded, just in case.
“It’s awesome to find good deals on stuff that we’re interested in,” said Macdonald.
Check out our website for Haig and Macdonald’s shopping spree video.
Once Upon a Tattoo Artist
The cotton candy pink room glows in the studio. The glass door has a glittering pink P on it. Bottles of coloured ink clutter the black shelf on the wall. The artist, Calah Wright, has several of her own paintings covering the remaining walls. The desk is covered with drawings and sheets of paper towels. This room is in The Gallery Custom Tattoo Studio located on Prince of Wales Drive.
The shop’s princess, Wright is an unordinary tattoo artist to watch in Ottawa. Many agree her art style and use of colours differentiates her from other artists in the tattoo world, especially with her piece Octognarl the Death Machine. This tattoo was meant to cause deaths because motorists would not be able to stop staring at it and would crash their cars, said Wright.
After almost a decade as a painter and only three years as a tattoo artist, she is preparing to hit the convention circuit where tattoo artists from around the world gather starting in Vancouver, B.C. this spring, in order to build her name internationally. The princess will surely charm her way to success and gain many loyal subjects while at the convention ball.
Her likeable princess personality can be overwhelming if not well understood. At times, her temper tantrums over the lack supplies at the shop can be frightening. When sheets of paper towel are missing, Wright will swear loudly and gesticulate her hands above her head because they are crucial to the job for wiping the tattoo needle of the extra ink.
However, Wright’s self-proclaimed title is well accepted by clients, colleagues and friends.
“There’s a line between being cocky and being confident,” said Wright. “And I like to dance on it.”
Wright, 30, does not fit the conventional princess appearance. She is heavily tattooed from her scalp to her feet. Overall, she has 94 butterflies on her body.
“I haven’t counted,” she said, “but I’ve made a boyfriend count one time, and that’s what he came up with.”
Most of them are part of bigger pieces such as a tree on her leg that has butterfly leaves. “They’re, like, hidden everywhere,” she said. The insect can do what it wants, when it wants and does not take life too seriously, Wright said. Her butterfly tattoos simply make her happy.
In the fall of 2010, Wright worked at Ventura Boulevard Tattoo Studios where she met Richard Morrissette, an international award winning artist and her mentor. For the first three months of working there, Morrissette ignored her.
“I didn’t understand her, I didn’t understand her artwork,” said Morrissette, who now owns of the Gallery Custom Tattoo Studio. “I didn’t understand who she was.” His wife, Nikki Nelson, told him to start paying attention to her. “She had potential in her,” he said.
The first time Wright went to a tattoo shop was during a mother-daughter bonding day at 15. She got her first tattoo, a butterfly, that day and it is the only piece of flash tattooing she has on her. Flash tattoos consist of predesigns that anyone can do, even a monkey if it was trained, Wright said.
However, she designed most of her other tattoos. Even if today the first butterfly looks bad, Wright said she will never cover it.
She customizes every tattoo she does and adapts them to the body part it is going on. “I can’t tell you what your tattoo is going to look like, except that it’ll look good,” the princess said.
Her entire left leg became her practice leg and has the first couple years of her career on it. “I’m just gonna sacrifice a limb and have some fun with it,” said Wright. She wanted to know what her machines felt like, she added. Wright did not want to practice on someone else. “My goal in life,” the princess said, “is to give people better tattoos then what I’ve got on me.”
Wright would get one or two tattoos per year while studying for her degree in communication studies and visual arts at the University of Windsor. However, Wright got heavily tattooed after graduation at 22. “I’m running out of space,” she said about her appearance today.
In her 20s, Wright worked across Canada at the front desk of hotels before ending up in Penticton, B.C. where she got her first apprenticeship at SunCity Tattoos and Body Piercing Inc. Rob, her first mentor, was in his early 60s at the time and had an old school way of teaching. She would not touch a machine for a year. Instead, she cleaned around the shop and prepared the tattoo chairs before sessions. Six months in, Wright quit because she didn’t agree with the terms in the contract they offered.
The princess does not have a sense of obligation, said one of her friends, Jennifer Andrews. “If it’s something that she wants to do then she’ll do it,” she said. “But if she has no interest, then you’re out of luck.”
On the other hand, Morrissette, her mentor, said “she doesn’t take shit from anybody.” Therefore, when the contract offered by SunCity Tattoos did not satisfy her, she left.
When she got an apprenticeship in Ottawa, Wright did not hesitate to come back east to her family that lives in Berwick, Ont. The apprenticeship was at a shop where “there was all that shady shit that you see in movies.” Wright recalls an incident where she was unable to work.
“When you walk into the backroom to do a drawing and you can’t because there’s a drug dealer in your way, it’s just not cool,” she said of an experience she had while working at the shop. “All I ever ask is give me what I need to do my job.”
When it comes to paper towel at the Gallery, Wright’s princess personality is evident. If she does not have any, “you’ll fucking hear about it,” she said. Morrissette, 41, said that “she’s slamming doors because of minor things.”
Even though anyone else would have fired her a long time ago, Morrissette hasn’t. “She’s not being evil, she’s not being a bitch, she’s just being Calah,” he said. “You have no choice but to accept her for who she is.”
But, when they were both at Ventura where they first met, Morrissette admits to having ignored her because “her artwork was a little crazy for me,” he said. After she stood up to him defending her art, he slowly started warming up to the princess. He then asked her to follow him to a shop he was opening. After weeks of thinking, Wright accepted. Morrissette taught her everything he had accumulated in 25 years of career. “She wasn’t a waste of my time,” he said.
Wright spent every spare time over Morrissette’s shoulder. “His teaching style and my learning style match very well,” she said. “She studied and just hit hard,” Morrissette said. However, there are now things she could teach him, Wright said.
Her mentor taught her about drop shadows and perspectives. “She took the theory that I gave her and made it her own,” he said. The princess will never follow the rules. “It’s just not in her,” he said, “she makes her own rules.”
When she announced she was leaving Ventura to the owner, the working conditions weren’t the same. “The environment wasn’t cool,” she said.
If you are trying to make permanent art on people and you’re uncomfortable doing it, it’s not fair to your client, Wright said. When she left Ventura, she took her growing client base with her.
Many of her friendships started on the tattoo chair. Her best friend, Jennifer Andrews, 35, followed Wright from one shop to the next in Ottawa. Andrews has four tattoos done by Wright. “She’s progressed so much,” she said. When they go out to the bars, Wright attracts a crowd. “People just approach her despite how she looks,” Andrews said.
On the other hand, Jennifer Bowman O’Reilly, a friend of Wright’s, said that no matter where you go the conversation always comes back to tattoos. “People will stop us on the street to come talk to her about her tattoos,” she said. O’Reilly, 37, was grateful for Wright’s sense of humor while getting tattooed last year. “You don’t want to be sitting in silence for that many hours,” she said.
Wright insists on meeting with new clients prior to the tattoo session to establish trust. “The trust between a client and an artist is just huge,” she said.
Wright works very long hours, but she loves what she does even if it is physically and mentally exhausting, Andrews said. “She enjoys her job and it transcribes in her work,” O’Reilly said.
Wright found her old roommate in her tattoo chair too. Amanda Boudnes, 32, was having a half sleeve done and mentioned she was looking for a roommate. Two weeks later, Wright moved in. Boudnes explained that Wright was messy by nature at home. “Calah has a tendency to not wear her glasses when she paints,” she said, which resulted in Boudnes regularly cleaning paint off the light switches.
Wright’s friends and clients followed her for their next tattoos to the Gallery Custom Tattoo and to the princess’s pink room.
All the artists got to pick the colours for their own rooms said Nelson, 35, who is co-owner of the shop. “Calah’s was pink because she’s our pink princess.” It’s not everyone’s taste, however, “I wouldn’t be able to work in here without going crazy,” Morrissette said.
Wright refers to her room as her “bubble of happiness” because “you can’t be sad in a bright pink room.” It’s a safe place for her and nothing else exists when she is in there. Sometimes, she even takes naps between tattoo sessions.
The princess will be hitting the convention circuit this spring to build her name. Being used to the privacy of her room, Wright is worried about her focus level. Especially when tattooing in a large room filled with hundreds of other artists and civilians, her focus level will be hard to maintain, she said. Tattooing and entering contests at conventions will result in her work wandering around different cities on different people. “It’s going to work out, but I can’t tell you how right now,” Wright said.
The shop’s princess, Wright is an unordinary tattoo artist to watch in Ottawa. Many agree her art style and use of colours differentiates her from other artists in the tattoo world, especially with her piece Octognarl the Death Machine. This tattoo was meant to cause deaths because motorists would not be able to stop staring at it and would crash their cars, said Wright.
After almost a decade as a painter and only three years as a tattoo artist, she is preparing to hit the convention circuit where tattoo artists from around the world gather starting in Vancouver, B.C. this spring, in order to build her name internationally. The princess will surely charm her way to success and gain many loyal subjects while at the convention ball.
Her likeable princess personality can be overwhelming if not well understood. At times, her temper tantrums over the lack supplies at the shop can be frightening. When sheets of paper towel are missing, Wright will swear loudly and gesticulate her hands above her head because they are crucial to the job for wiping the tattoo needle of the extra ink.
However, Wright’s self-proclaimed title is well accepted by clients, colleagues and friends.
“There’s a line between being cocky and being confident,” said Wright. “And I like to dance on it.”
Wright, 30, does not fit the conventional princess appearance. She is heavily tattooed from her scalp to her feet. Overall, she has 94 butterflies on her body.
“I haven’t counted,” she said, “but I’ve made a boyfriend count one time, and that’s what he came up with.”
Most of them are part of bigger pieces such as a tree on her leg that has butterfly leaves. “They’re, like, hidden everywhere,” she said. The insect can do what it wants, when it wants and does not take life too seriously, Wright said. Her butterfly tattoos simply make her happy.
In the fall of 2010, Wright worked at Ventura Boulevard Tattoo Studios where she met Richard Morrissette, an international award winning artist and her mentor. For the first three months of working there, Morrissette ignored her.
“I didn’t understand her, I didn’t understand her artwork,” said Morrissette, who now owns of the Gallery Custom Tattoo Studio. “I didn’t understand who she was.” His wife, Nikki Nelson, told him to start paying attention to her. “She had potential in her,” he said.
The first time Wright went to a tattoo shop was during a mother-daughter bonding day at 15. She got her first tattoo, a butterfly, that day and it is the only piece of flash tattooing she has on her. Flash tattoos consist of predesigns that anyone can do, even a monkey if it was trained, Wright said.
However, she designed most of her other tattoos. Even if today the first butterfly looks bad, Wright said she will never cover it.
She customizes every tattoo she does and adapts them to the body part it is going on. “I can’t tell you what your tattoo is going to look like, except that it’ll look good,” the princess said.
Her entire left leg became her practice leg and has the first couple years of her career on it. “I’m just gonna sacrifice a limb and have some fun with it,” said Wright. She wanted to know what her machines felt like, she added. Wright did not want to practice on someone else. “My goal in life,” the princess said, “is to give people better tattoos then what I’ve got on me.”
Wright would get one or two tattoos per year while studying for her degree in communication studies and visual arts at the University of Windsor. However, Wright got heavily tattooed after graduation at 22. “I’m running out of space,” she said about her appearance today.
In her 20s, Wright worked across Canada at the front desk of hotels before ending up in Penticton, B.C. where she got her first apprenticeship at SunCity Tattoos and Body Piercing Inc. Rob, her first mentor, was in his early 60s at the time and had an old school way of teaching. She would not touch a machine for a year. Instead, she cleaned around the shop and prepared the tattoo chairs before sessions. Six months in, Wright quit because she didn’t agree with the terms in the contract they offered.
The princess does not have a sense of obligation, said one of her friends, Jennifer Andrews. “If it’s something that she wants to do then she’ll do it,” she said. “But if she has no interest, then you’re out of luck.”
On the other hand, Morrissette, her mentor, said “she doesn’t take shit from anybody.” Therefore, when the contract offered by SunCity Tattoos did not satisfy her, she left.
When she got an apprenticeship in Ottawa, Wright did not hesitate to come back east to her family that lives in Berwick, Ont. The apprenticeship was at a shop where “there was all that shady shit that you see in movies.” Wright recalls an incident where she was unable to work.
“When you walk into the backroom to do a drawing and you can’t because there’s a drug dealer in your way, it’s just not cool,” she said of an experience she had while working at the shop. “All I ever ask is give me what I need to do my job.”
When it comes to paper towel at the Gallery, Wright’s princess personality is evident. If she does not have any, “you’ll fucking hear about it,” she said. Morrissette, 41, said that “she’s slamming doors because of minor things.”
Even though anyone else would have fired her a long time ago, Morrissette hasn’t. “She’s not being evil, she’s not being a bitch, she’s just being Calah,” he said. “You have no choice but to accept her for who she is.”
But, when they were both at Ventura where they first met, Morrissette admits to having ignored her because “her artwork was a little crazy for me,” he said. After she stood up to him defending her art, he slowly started warming up to the princess. He then asked her to follow him to a shop he was opening. After weeks of thinking, Wright accepted. Morrissette taught her everything he had accumulated in 25 years of career. “She wasn’t a waste of my time,” he said.
Wright spent every spare time over Morrissette’s shoulder. “His teaching style and my learning style match very well,” she said. “She studied and just hit hard,” Morrissette said. However, there are now things she could teach him, Wright said.
Her mentor taught her about drop shadows and perspectives. “She took the theory that I gave her and made it her own,” he said. The princess will never follow the rules. “It’s just not in her,” he said, “she makes her own rules.”
When she announced she was leaving Ventura to the owner, the working conditions weren’t the same. “The environment wasn’t cool,” she said.
If you are trying to make permanent art on people and you’re uncomfortable doing it, it’s not fair to your client, Wright said. When she left Ventura, she took her growing client base with her.
Many of her friendships started on the tattoo chair. Her best friend, Jennifer Andrews, 35, followed Wright from one shop to the next in Ottawa. Andrews has four tattoos done by Wright. “She’s progressed so much,” she said. When they go out to the bars, Wright attracts a crowd. “People just approach her despite how she looks,” Andrews said.
On the other hand, Jennifer Bowman O’Reilly, a friend of Wright’s, said that no matter where you go the conversation always comes back to tattoos. “People will stop us on the street to come talk to her about her tattoos,” she said. O’Reilly, 37, was grateful for Wright’s sense of humor while getting tattooed last year. “You don’t want to be sitting in silence for that many hours,” she said.
Wright insists on meeting with new clients prior to the tattoo session to establish trust. “The trust between a client and an artist is just huge,” she said.
Wright works very long hours, but she loves what she does even if it is physically and mentally exhausting, Andrews said. “She enjoys her job and it transcribes in her work,” O’Reilly said.
Wright found her old roommate in her tattoo chair too. Amanda Boudnes, 32, was having a half sleeve done and mentioned she was looking for a roommate. Two weeks later, Wright moved in. Boudnes explained that Wright was messy by nature at home. “Calah has a tendency to not wear her glasses when she paints,” she said, which resulted in Boudnes regularly cleaning paint off the light switches.
Wright’s friends and clients followed her for their next tattoos to the Gallery Custom Tattoo and to the princess’s pink room.
All the artists got to pick the colours for their own rooms said Nelson, 35, who is co-owner of the shop. “Calah’s was pink because she’s our pink princess.” It’s not everyone’s taste, however, “I wouldn’t be able to work in here without going crazy,” Morrissette said.
Wright refers to her room as her “bubble of happiness” because “you can’t be sad in a bright pink room.” It’s a safe place for her and nothing else exists when she is in there. Sometimes, she even takes naps between tattoo sessions.
The princess will be hitting the convention circuit this spring to build her name. Being used to the privacy of her room, Wright is worried about her focus level. Especially when tattooing in a large room filled with hundreds of other artists and civilians, her focus level will be hard to maintain, she said. Tattooing and entering contests at conventions will result in her work wandering around different cities on different people. “It’s going to work out, but I can’t tell you how right now,” Wright said.
Follow the Leader, the Roof is on Fire
“The group on the first day is entirely different from the group we see leaving on the last day.”
This is an observation by Jean-Francois Caron, an pre-service firefighter education instructor at Algonquin who is looking at yet another graduating class moving on to the workforce.
His students agree.
“We’re no longer kids when we come here,” said Sandy Mah, a 28-year-old student.
The pre-service firefighter education program revolves around team work, leadership, discipline and safety. The students that started in September are learning the necessary skills to become a firefighter.
The fire department is based on a ranking system where the program coordinator Randy Foster is “chief” and instructor Caron is referred to as “captain.”
Classes are based on a chain of orders principle, said Caron, 34. Early in the year, the instructors name platoon leaders based on maturity, organization skills, motivation and ability to motivate others. The students are then divided into four platoons.
Alex Morehuse, 20, is one of them. He is the liaison between the captains and his group.
“You need to make sure the students understand what they are doing,” he said.
Morehuse makes sure everything is in order upon arriving in P126, the fire department lab. Before the class starts, they stand in rows for the inspection of their uniforms before practices and drills begin.
“We have to be tough on them, “ said Caron who’s been teaching for the past eight years.
“It’s definitely not a place for fun,” said Mah.
He is part of platoon A which has labs every Thursday morning starting at 8 a.m. The door to P126 opens and the students walk up the stairs to inspect their personal protective equipment or bunkers as they are commonly known.
It’s not all about the T-shirts and the calendars; the program is difficult said Caron, who graduated from the Algonquin program in 2002.
The instructors are also full-time firefighters in Ottawa and want to make sure the students know what they are doing and how to do things before they leave to find employment. They could cross paths at a fire in the city.
“I don’t want them to put my life in danger, or any other firefighter’s life in danger,” said Caron.
Each week has a different exercise. On March 21, the students practiced how to use portable pumps and competed in elaborate drills.
“They’re developing team work,” said Caron.
From the set up to the actual exercises, students do everything together.
“Everybody is like family,” said Mah. “We look out for each other.”
This year, the family is composed of 56 students. Over 400 people apply each year and only 60 start in September. However, the program can’t guarantee jobs after graduation.
“We’re giving them the tools,” said Caron. Then, it’s up to them.
The Ottawa Fire Services hired three Algonquin graduates last year and nine in 2011 according to Marc Messier, public information officer.
“I’d see myself working with most of the students,” said Caron who works at a Centretown fire house.
This is an observation by Jean-Francois Caron, an pre-service firefighter education instructor at Algonquin who is looking at yet another graduating class moving on to the workforce.
His students agree.
“We’re no longer kids when we come here,” said Sandy Mah, a 28-year-old student.
The pre-service firefighter education program revolves around team work, leadership, discipline and safety. The students that started in September are learning the necessary skills to become a firefighter.
The fire department is based on a ranking system where the program coordinator Randy Foster is “chief” and instructor Caron is referred to as “captain.”
Classes are based on a chain of orders principle, said Caron, 34. Early in the year, the instructors name platoon leaders based on maturity, organization skills, motivation and ability to motivate others. The students are then divided into four platoons.
Alex Morehuse, 20, is one of them. He is the liaison between the captains and his group.
“You need to make sure the students understand what they are doing,” he said.
Morehuse makes sure everything is in order upon arriving in P126, the fire department lab. Before the class starts, they stand in rows for the inspection of their uniforms before practices and drills begin.
“We have to be tough on them, “ said Caron who’s been teaching for the past eight years.
“It’s definitely not a place for fun,” said Mah.
He is part of platoon A which has labs every Thursday morning starting at 8 a.m. The door to P126 opens and the students walk up the stairs to inspect their personal protective equipment or bunkers as they are commonly known.
It’s not all about the T-shirts and the calendars; the program is difficult said Caron, who graduated from the Algonquin program in 2002.
The instructors are also full-time firefighters in Ottawa and want to make sure the students know what they are doing and how to do things before they leave to find employment. They could cross paths at a fire in the city.
“I don’t want them to put my life in danger, or any other firefighter’s life in danger,” said Caron.
Each week has a different exercise. On March 21, the students practiced how to use portable pumps and competed in elaborate drills.
“They’re developing team work,” said Caron.
From the set up to the actual exercises, students do everything together.
“Everybody is like family,” said Mah. “We look out for each other.”
This year, the family is composed of 56 students. Over 400 people apply each year and only 60 start in September. However, the program can’t guarantee jobs after graduation.
“We’re giving them the tools,” said Caron. Then, it’s up to them.
The Ottawa Fire Services hired three Algonquin graduates last year and nine in 2011 according to Marc Messier, public information officer.
“I’d see myself working with most of the students,” said Caron who works at a Centretown fire house.
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