N.L. set to expand cancer coverage for firefighters

An advocate for better cancer insurance for firefighters says the Newfoundland and Labrador government's planned expansion of coverage is great news for the first responders and their families.

Proposed amendments to the Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Act received a second reading in the House of Assembly on Tuesday. It proposes expanded presumptive cancer and cardiac coverage for career and volunteer firefighters.

Jim O'Toole, vice-president of the Atlantic Provinces Professional Fire Fighters Association, says the expansion of coverage is the culmination of work that began decades ago.

"This legislation originally started back in the late '90s when a group of firefighters got together when all this started to come to the forefront of carcinogens causing cancer to firefighters," O'Toole told CBC News. 

"Our legislation was then put in place in 2016 and now, six years later, here we are amending the same legislation, adding eight more cancers for a total of 19 for firefighters in Newfoundland and Labrador."

O'Toole has been working with the St. John's regional fire department for the last 21 years. In 2018, he was diagnosed with kidney cancer. Only a few months later, he was diagnosed with melanoma.

While kidney cancer was covered under provincial legislation, melanoma — a type of skin cancer — wasn't. O'Toole had to fight for that himself and won.

If approved, the amended legislation will expand coverage to include prostate cancer, multiple myeloma, cervical, ovarian, penile, pancreatic, thyroid and skin cancer, as well as cardiac events that occur within 24 hours of a firefighter responding to an emergency.

The amendments need to be voted on in the House before anything is made official, but all political parties seemed to be on the same page on Tuesday, O'Toole said.

"This is a great announcement. This is a great piece of legislation that the Liberal government put in place," he said. 

"This will have huge benefits for firefighters and their families should they get struck down with an occupational cancer due to their profession."

On Tuesday, Labour Minister Bernard Davis said expanded cancer coverage for firefighters is the "right thing to do."

"This is something that was in our [statutory] review in 2019 and we're very happy today to be able to make it come to fruition," said Davis. 

"The carcinogens that burn within buildings and fires that they have to run into to fight on our behalf, to save the people that are impacted, have been known cancer-causing agents."