Former employees of General Electric Peterborough say they are disappointed in the results of a workers’ compensation board review of denied cancer claims, arguing sweeping changes are necessary to how the board treats victims of occupational disease.

The review was initiated last year after a Star investigation detailed decades of toxic exposures at one of Canada’s oldest and largest industrial operations between 1940 and 1980, as well as the workers’ struggle to receive compensation. The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board has now revisited 233 previously denied claims for a range of chronic and sometimes terminal illnesses and has overturned 71 of its decisions.

In 105 cases, the board upheld its original decision. Four cases were abandoned by workers or their families; in an additional 53 previously abandoned claims, the board tried to find next of kin who may wish to revive the claim. They were able to contact eight families.

Armando Fatigati, the WSIB’s vice president of complex claims, said the review reflected “the most updated scientific research and all the available evidence.”

“Peterborough families were looking for answers and closure. People brought forward new information and wanted to know that all of the evidence and latest scientific research was considered,” he said.

Sue James, who worked at GE for 30 years alongside her father, Gord, who later died of cancer, said she believes the board still fails to accurately recognize and compensate occupational illnesses.

“Our whole feeling is that all these years we’ve been fighting it has been a sham and a hoax,” she said. “When you see these final results you think, you haven’t even hit the tip of the iceberg.”

GE Peterborough workers, who built everything from household appliances to diesel locomotive engines and fuel cells for nuclear reactors, were exposed to more than 3,000 toxic chemicals, including at least 40 known or suspected to cause cancer, at levels hundreds of times higher than what is now considered safe, according to a 173-page report compiled by a coalition of former employees.

GE has always maintained that it “adhered to the health and safety practices that were appropriate for the time.” Last year, the company announced it would close its Peterborough operations, leaving its remaining 350 employees without jobs. At its height, the factory founded by famed inventor Thomas Edison employed thousands of people.

The Star has previously highlighted the unique challenges facing those seeking compensation for workplace illnesses. Often diseases do not show up until many years after retirement, meaning many workers do not make the connection between possible exposures and their condition. When they do file claims, gathering enough evidence to satisfy the compensation board can be onerous if not impossible for families struggling with sickness, loss and scientific uncertainty.

Bob DeMatteo, the former occupational health director for the Ontario Public Service Employees Union who has helped GE retirees compile evidence, said there is little funding for occupational disease research and workers still encounter “an organization culture of denial” at the compensation board.

“Essentially these claims really have been subjected to all the major systemic obstacles to disease recognition that the board has followed throughout the years,” he said.

A 2016 Supreme Court decision ruled that workers’ compensation boards cannot demand definitive proof that an illness is work-related, especially since existing scientific research on occupational disease is sometimes lacking or inconclusive.

Instead, the Supreme Court said compensation boards must consider all available evidence and decide on the balance of probabilities whether a workplace contributed to a claimant’s illness. If so, workers are entitled to compensation. In borderline cases, the court said workers must be given the benefit of the doubt.

“When we look at all claims, we rely on the best scientific evidence available as well as information about the person’s illness, workplace exposures and relevant non-occupational factors,” said WSIB spokesperson Christine Arnott. “We consider all information available before making a decision so that people can access the benefits and services they may be entitled to.”

James, whose father also worked at GE and died with a tumour in his lung and four on his spine, disagrees.

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“We want a public inquiry into WSIB in general but here we are, and people are still dying.”

For Marilyn Harding, who worked at the plant for most of her life alongside her late husband and father, the results of the WSIB’s review are bittersweet. Her own previously denied claims for breast and bladder cancer have now been accepted. But her husband’s claim for pancreatic cancer has been rejected again, as has her father’s claim for prostate cancer.

“I’m happy that I’m accepted. I never thought that my own (claim) would be,” she told the Star. “I wanted to see my husband and my father’s (claims approved). I really was wanting to see justice for them because of them both not being alive.”

Harding says she was troubled to identify numerous errors in the recent WSIB decision on her husband Gerry’s case, including incorrect details about his work history.

“Most of his years in GE he worked in plating, but they say hardly anything about the plating department,” she said, adding he routinely worked with solvents in that capacity. Long-term workplace exposure to solvents is listed by the Canadian Cancer Society as a possible risk factor for pancreatic cancer.

In April, then provincial labour minister Kevin Flynn announced a “review of how work-related cancers are evaluated to ensure the compensation system takes into account best practices and the most up-to-date medical science” led by independent expert Paul Demers and the Occupational Cancer Research Centre at Cancer Care Ontario.

Asked by the Star if that review will continue as planned or be cancelled following the election of Premier Doug Ford, Ministry of Labour spokesperson Janet Deline said the government was “currently assessing all current and proposed contracts.”

Deline said the ministry has also placed other grant programs on hold, including the Research Opportunities Program, which has disbursed $9.8 million in funding for 48 projects including one aimed at establishing an occupational disease surveillance system for Ontario. Deline said no currently funded projects would be impacted by the review.

The WSIB recently contracted the consulting group KPMG to assess its occupational disease program to “help ensure it provides people with the best service possible, efficiently and effectively,” said Arnott.

“This includes looking at how we can best use the legislative tools at our disposal to support consistent and timely decision-making that is based on up-to-date scientific research on disease causation.”

GE retirees whose claims were rejected again during the WSIB’s review are able to appeal.

“The fact that these diseases are not recognized appropriately means when we look at the whole area of prevention we get a distorted view of what the extent of industrial disease is,” said DeMatteo.

“It puts the burden of industrial disease on the public health care system and (workers’) families.”