New Manitoba law ensures WCB 
coverage for firefighters

In sharp contrast to the situation in British Columbia, at least one provincial government is advancing workers rights, instead of rolling them back.

A new bill introduced by the Manitoba NDP government lists five types of cancers that will be assumed to be work-related for firefighters in that province. The bill guarantees that firefighters diagnosed with brain cancer, bladder cancer, kidney cancer, non-Hodgkins lymphoma or leukemia will receive WCB benefits for their disease. Previously, the WCB didn’t cover these diseases because they couldn’t definitively be linked to the workplace.

"This is the kind of progressive, pro-worker legislation that we are sorely missing in Alberta," says Les Steel, President of the AFL.

This is the first law of its kind in Canada. The Alberta WCB has indicated it has no interests in passing similar policy.