New Brunswick Enacts Presumptive Legislation

July 31, 2009 -- New Brunswick is now officially the seventh Canadian province to enact presumptive legislation for professional fire fighters.

Regulations specifying coverage for 10 cancers plus heart injuries that occur within 24 hours of duty are now in place, meaning the province’s 482 IAFF members now have this important protection.

The New Brunswick government originally passed a bill regarding presumptive cancer and heart legislation in December 2007, but the accompanying regulations, which are needed in order to specify details about the coverage, stalled at the bureaucratic level. Questions about how to fund the compensation also caused delays.

But those hurdles were overcome and a new bill was passed in June, followed by the regulations in July. The province’s professional fire fighters now have coverage for primary site brain, bladder, colorectal, esophageal, kidney, testicular and ureter cancer, in addition to leukemia, non-Hodgkins lymphoma and lung cancer in fire fighters who were non-smokers for at least 10 years prior to diagnosis.

Doug LeBlanc, president of Fredericton, NB Local 1053 and recently-elected president of the Atlantic Provinces Professional Fire Fighters Association (APPFFA), says he is proud to see the coverage finally in place, while crediting APPFFA Past President John McCarthy of Saint John Local 771 and APPFFA New Brunswick Vice President John Courtney of Moncton Local 999 for their work on the issue.

“It was a long battle,” LeBlanc says of the coverage. “And we give great thanks to all of the other provincial jurisdictions who laid the groundwork for us.”

Manitoba was the first Canadian province to enact presumptive cancer legislation for fire fighters in 2002. It was followed by Alberta, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, British Columbia, Ontario and now New Brunswick. The Province of Newfoundland and Labrador remains the last Canadian province with IAFF affiliates who don’t have presumptive legislation.

The IAFF has been assisting St. John’s Local 1075 in their ongoing lobby for the legislation. In August 2008, IAFF General President Harold Schaitberger wrote a letter to Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams urging him to recognize what other provinces have done and to enact presumptive legislation. It was followed by a letter signed by all of the IAFF’s Canadian District Vice Presidents and Provincial Presidents urging the same.

LeBlanc says helping Newfoundland and Labrador achieve presumptive legislation will be a “main focus” for the APPFFA in the coming months. Elsewhere in Canada, the members of Whitehorse, Yukon Local 2217 are currently lobbying their territorial government for presumptive cancer legislation, with assistance from Winnipeg Local 867 President Alex Forrest, who was instrumental in securing Manitoba’s legislation in 2002.

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