Longtime N.S. volunteer firefighter battling cancer won't receive compensation
CBC
When Bruce Masales was diagnosed with Stage 4 bladder cancer, he says the news came without warning.
But as a longtime volunteer Halifax firefighter, Masales said he at least took comfort in the belief he would receive financial compensation.
However, Masales said he was told he doesn't qualify under the provincial Workers' Compensation Board or other municipal insurance coverage, falling through a gap in both systems.
"I'm sitting there — I was kind of shocked," Masales, 60, said recently.
The doctors discovered the cancer during an unrelated surgery he had last summer, Masales said.
He was diagnosed in August 2024 with metastatic Stage 4 bladder cancer — meaning it had spread to other organs. Masales was originally told he had about a year to live.
"I'm going, 'Well, wait a minute, what happened to Stage 1, 2, 3, and I bypassed that?,' … because I just had no symptoms," he said.
Masales spent a 21-year volunteer career at Station 16 in his home community of Eastern Passage, retiring in 2017.
He said he loved the role. It was hard work being a volunteer firefighter and handling a day job, but it was important to "give back to the community."
The workers' compensation board has presumptively covered bladder cancer for firefighters since 1993, recognizing the increased cancer risk related to being a firefighter.
"I never smoked in my life, never did drugs in my life, didn't drink enough to say I drank," Masales said. "I know people that did all three to excess, and they're healthy as a horse."
Masales originally applied to the workers' compensation board because he appeared to fit their criteria of serving at least 15 years to qualify for bladder-cancer coverage. But his claim was rejected because the Halifax Regional Municipality only began paying into the board in January 2021 — after Masales had left.
"Found … the [Firefighters' Compensation Act] that said the province would take care of their firefighters," Masales said.
"Well, they'll only take care of them if the municipalities that they are in, are paying the money in."
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