P.E.I. firefighters want WCB coverage for female colleagues

Firefighters in Prince Edward Island want the Workers Compensation Board of P.E.I. to expand the list of cancers under its coverage to include those that directly affect women, according to a report.

Jason Woodbury, chief of the Miscouche fire department in P.E.I., is looking to bring up the issue at the West Prince Mutual Aid meeting next month, and at a chiefs' meeting being planned for this month, CBC reported.

"The culture of the fire department has always been male-dominant, so I'm extremely excited to see there's coverage for female firefighters [in Nova Scotia] because females do play a huge part in the fire service," said Woodbury, according to the report.

Woodbury will also request a meeting with the minister responsible for the matter to see if the same changes can be made for female firefighters on P.E.I., according to CBC. And he believes it will not be difficult to convince politicians to make the necessary adjustments.

“We need to move and be progressive as well with legislation," he said, according to the report.

Recently, Nova Scotia announced it is adding 13 more types of cancers to the six currently covered in the Firefighters Compensation Regulations under the Workers’ Compensation Act, including ovarian and cervical cancers. This will be in effect starting July 1.

Having the same development happen in P.E.I. will be a big thing, said Catrina Chaisson, a volunteer firefighter with the Miscouche department, according to the CBC report.

"It'd be great if that could relay over to P.E.I. as well. I think sometimes because the ratio of women to men is so different in the fire department that a lot of women just seem to get overlooked a bit," Chaisson said, adding she is the lone woman in her department of 42.

The Workers Compensation Board of P.E.I. said that it introduced legislation in January 2019 recognizing the inherent risks associated with firefighting and the hazardous work firefighters do, according to CBC. Those amendments were developed in collaboration with the P.E.I. Fire Marshal, the P.E.I. Firefighters Association and the Charlottetown Fire Department, it added.

It also said that the list of 14 cancers covered in the regulations is reviewed periodically. The last review was held in 2021, with no additions being considered at this time.

In January this year, the Montreal Firefighters Association released a call to expand the list of cancers that are recognized as occupational diseases for firefighters – a move that firefighters’ associations around Canada are in total support of.

In P.E.I., there are 22 fire departments run by municipalities and 14 departments run by private fire companies. There are about 1,000 firefighters in the province, and nearly all (98.9%) of these men and women serve their communities in a volunteer capacity, according to the provincial government.

Exposure to cancer-causing agents in the workplace is estimated to cause approximately 10,000 cancers in Canada each year, according to a previous report. Another study found that firefighters absorb harmful chemicals through the skin.