Members of the B.C. legislature pushed through a bill ending the B.C. ambulance paramedics strike after a gruelling 13-hour session that started Friday.

Government House Leader Mike de Jong had warned that members would sit through the whole weekend in order to have Bill 21 in place by Monday.

The government argued the strike, which began in April, is dragging on and risking public health, with the ongoing danger of the H1N1 virus and the approach of winter. But CUPE insists the legislation was spurred by requests from the Vancouver Olympic organizing committee to the Health Ministry.

Paramedics had still been working during the strike under an essential-services order from the provincial government.

The province moved to legislate the 3,500 paramedics back to work with less than a month to go in the current legislative session — the last regular sitting of the house before the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

The settlement outlined in the Ambulance Service Collective Agreement Act reflected the offer made to the union in September.

The one-year deal is retroactive to April 1, and includes a competitive compensation increase of three per cent, in line with wage increases for other public-sector workers in 2009.

In September, the president of CUPE local 873 — the union representing the striking paramedics — told his members the latest contract offer at that time was “repugnant.”

“We could never recommend this settlement proposal to our membership,” John Strohmaier wrote in late September, calling the offer at that time “woefully short of reasonable expectations.”