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 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.”
The province made it mandatory for municipalities to provide cancer coverage for volunteer firefighters in 2020. Before then, there was a patchwork across the province where some areas used the workers’ compensation board and others only private insurance with varying levels of benefits.
Halifax used a private insurance policy for volunteers between 1996 and 2021. Municipal spokesperson Laura White said the insurance had a cancer benefit of $5,000, but only applied to volunteers diagnosed while in “active service.”
Masales said he wonders how many other Halifax volunteers might be caught in this gap if they retired before 2021 because cancer usually takes years to show up.
When he joined in 1996, Masales said there were about 1,200 volunteers across the municipality working alongside career firefighters, like at Station 16. That has dropped over the years to now about 560 active volunteers in Halifax, and 550 career members.
“HRM Fire is the largest fire department in Nova Scotia, right? And they dropped the ball not protecting their volunteers,” Masales said.
“But I think the province dropped the ball because right here where the government is based … somebody must have noticed at some point in time, ‘Jeez, we should be getting money from these 1,200 volunteers. You know, the city should have been paying [WCB].”
Eight claims denied in recent years
Steve MacDonald, the spokesperson for the workers’ compensation board in Nova Scotia, said the board received 60 claims for compensation related to cancer from volunteer firefighters across the province between 2020 and 2024.
The board didn’t provide benefits in eight of those cases. MacDonald said this could happen for a number of reasons and “it is quite possible coverage may have been in place, but the claim may not have proceeded for another reason.”
MacDonald didn’t say where the claims came from out of privacy concerns.
Any compensation would have made a real difference, Masales said, because there’s things he’d love to do “before I go” that he can’t afford — like visiting Gibsons, B.C., where they filmed the iconic TV series Beachcombers. He’d also like to improve the house to make things easier on his wife.
Masales went through four rounds of chemotherapy last fall. His doctors believe he has about two years left to live with the support of immunotherapy treatment.
Although it was a relief to get the news he has a little bit more time than he originally thought, Masales said he feels like “Wile E. Coyote and the ACME anvil sitting up waiting to drop.”
Masales said he went to his MLA Barbara Adams, who looked into his case but said there was nothing she could do.
Provincial spokesperson Greg Hanna said the Nova Scotia government is always looking for ways to better support firefighters and “the focus now is on ensuring that all active firefighters are covered moving forward.”
The Halifax Professional Fire Fighters association represents career members and not volunteers, but president Brendan Meagher said every firefighter dealing with cancer deserves support.
He said it “doesn’t feel like justice” that somebody who has been exposed to smoke and toxic chemicals through their service isn’t covered because they were diagnosed after they left.
“You know, there’s an onus on the city to make sure that people are taken care of,” Meagher said.
Coun. Becky Kent, Masales’s local councillor, said she couldn’t speak to his specific case but it’s “always discouraging” when systems don’t work for the people they’re designed to support.
When asked if she would explore a city-funded program to help volunteer firefighters in this gap, Kent said it depends on the model. But she said she would consider “any good idea.”
CBC asked to speak with Halifax CAO Cathie O’Toole about this gap for volunteers, but she declined the request.
