MPP Cheri DiNovo’s Bill 67 [ Now Called Bill 2 ]will help first-responders suffering from PTSD

MPP Cheri DiNovo’s Bill 67 [ Now Called Bill 2 ]will help first-responders suffering from PTSD

Private member’s bill passed second reading, Feb. 27

Bill 67

Staff photo/ERIN HATFIELD

Shannon Bertrand and Parkdale-High Park MPP Cheri DiNovo at the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Feb. 27. Bertrand, a Toronto Paramedic, suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, and inspired DiNovo's private member's Bill 67.

Parkdale Villager

By Erin Hatfield

Shannon Bertrand was living in Parkdale when she wandered into NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo’s constituency office in 2008, desperate for help.

Bertrand, who now lives in Mississauga, has been a paramedic for the City of Toronto for the past 17 years. She suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), suffered at work.

“I could not find any help or resources,” Bertrand said. “So I put in a WSIB (Workplace Safety and Insurance Board) claim, which is now in it’s eighth year.”

The claim, Bertrand said, has been denied because it has not been deemed “an acute reaction to a life-threatening event”.

Bertrand had knocked on every door she could think of from ombudsmen to labour relations and human rights organizations.

“Then I found Cheri and she was the one who listened,” Bertrand said.

Bertrand’s pleas served as the inspiration for DiNovo’s Bill 67, a private member’s bill to amend the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act with regards to PTSD. The bill passed second reading Feb. 27.

“We’re one stop closer to easing the process for first responders with PTSD,” said DiNovo, the MPP for Parkdale-High Park. “These changes will help them come forward, get the necessary treatment, and heal.”

Bill 67 proposes that if police, fire fighters and paramedics suffer from PTSD, the disorder is presumed to be an occupational disease that occurred due to the employment as an emergency response worker, unless the contrary is shown.

In a press conference prior to the second reading of Bill 67, DiNovo explained a presumed diagnosis would mean first responders wouldn’t have to go through a lengthy process of proving the PTSD is a result of their work.

“We are talking about dignity and support for our first responders,” DiNovo said. “These are men and women who run into danger when we are running out. What they deal with is reality, and it is a traumatic reality.”

Those first responders who develop PTSD from their job, DiNovo said, should not have to be re-traumatized by having to prove they came down with PTSD because if their work.

“This should be an assumption on our part,” DiNovo said. “We need to do all we can do to protect those who protect us.”

Joining DiNovo at the press conference was David Whitley, an advanced care paramedic with York EMS, Bruce Kruger, retired detective with the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and Jeffery Balch, with the Ontario Professional Fire Fighters Association. All three men have struggled with PTSD and with making WSIB claims, and were at Queen’s Park to voice their support for the bill.

Whitley was T-boned while responding to a call in the ambulance.

“In the days and weeks after, the sense of fear and anxiety was overwhelming,” Whitley said. “I was locked in my trauma, I felt stranded and I couldn’t share my experience with my employer and my colleagues.”

He said he felt he couldn’t risk the ridicule and humiliation he said he felt would come with making a WSIB claim for PTSD.

“I didn’t want to be re-traumatized,” he said “It was just too much.”

Presumed diagnosis for first responders has been in place in Alberta since 2012.

This is the third time DiNovo has tabled this bill. It was previously tabled in 2010 and 2012, but this is the first time it has made it to and passed second reading.

It passed second reading unanimously and an effort will be made to have it enacted by May 1, which is First Responders Day.

“Cheri has had the political tenacity of a bull dog in not letting this go,” Bertrand said. “I believe she recognizes people are not able to reach the types of treatments and resources they need to get better and get back to work.”

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OPP Association Offers Support at 2nd Reading of Bill 67

BARRIE, ON, Feb. 27, 2014 /CNW/ - Members of the Ontario Provincial Police Association (OPPA) Board of Directors and OPP Association members were at the Ontario legislature on Thursday February 27^th to show the Association's support for MPP Cheri DiNovo's Private Members Bill 67 - which would amend the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act to provide better support for front line officers suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress disorder. 
"The OPP Association believes strongly in Bill 67 and is very grateful to MPP DiNovo for championing this issue," said President Jim Christie. "'We hope that all three parties will work together to rapidly advance this important bill in the coming weeks."   It is estimated that up to 15% of police officers will experience PTSD over the course of their careers. Despite the fact that the vast majority of these cases are work-related, impacted officers currently have to undergo an exhausting, intrusive and at times unfair process to prove that their illness is work related. Bill 67 would cut red tape and streamline this process so that PTSD sufferers are not re-victimized through their appeal for support.
"Right now, many of our members will not seek help for job-related PTSD as a result of the application process. A process which they feel forces them to re-live the very trauma that created their illness in the first place. Simply put, this is wrong and needs to be fixed. These brave officers have confronted some of the most horrible things imaginable so that our citizens are safe. In return we have an obligation to give them the support they need in dealing with the aftermath." said President Jim Christie.
To become law, Bill 67 will have to be heard by committee and then returned to the legislature for third and final reading. For this to occur, all parties will have to work together to ensure that the process unfolds in a speedy manner.
"There is no controversy around this bill in its current form - it is simple, straightforward and eminently reasonable. To MPP's I say If you believe that the work police personnel do matters, if you believe that our police personnel as people matter, then I strongly urge you to move this important piece of legislation forward in as quick a manner as possible." said President Jim Christie.
To learn more about Bill 67, please visit www.ontla.on.ca/web/bills/bills_detail.do?locale=en&BillID=2789. To learn more about the OPP Association, the largest police association of its kind in Canada, please visit www.oppa.ca or www.facebook.com/OPPAssociation.

SOURCE Ontario Provincial Police Association

For further information:

Jim Christie, President, OPP Association, (705) 728-6161