I’d like to thank the member for his comments. I just want to express my condolences on the loss of your father due to occupational disease. It’s terrible.

We’ve noticed on the official opposition side that nowhere in the bill is it included that firefighters will be protected with presumptive coverage for pancreatic and thyroid cancer, but we welcome that. It’s unfortunate that it’s not codified within this legislation.

I did want to also mirror the words of the Occupational Disease Reform Alliance. They noted a fellow who unfortunately passed away. His name was Bud Simpson. He worked at Fibreglass Sarnia for 36 years. Sarnia is the occupational disease capital and the heart of the petrochemical industry. In 2011, the World Health Organization said that it had the most polluted air in the country. Despite that, multiple exposures are not covered under WSIB, as I’m sure you know. Would you like to see that included in reforms to WSIB covering multiple exposures?

To your point—and thank you for the opposition’s statement—like many of us in the House, I’m privileged to have some very hard-working and dedicated firefighters in my riding. Firefighters die of cancer at a rate four times higher than the general population. On average, 50 to 60 firefighters die of cancer yearly in Canada, and half of those are from Ontario.

Will the member please support our proposal to expand WSIB to expand presumptive coverage?

I would like to thank the member from Orléans for his presentation. We’ve heard from government members claiming there will be presumptive coverage for pancreatic and thyroid cancers for firefighters, yet it does not exist within the bill. Earlier, I’d spoken to the government members about Bud Simpson, a Sarnia native who passed away from nasopharyngeal and gastrointestinal cancer which metastasized to his brain.

But I also wanted to share, from the Occupational Disease Reform Alliance, somebody from Peterborough who worked at General Electric—his widow’s name is Sara Sharpe. He worked there for 42 years and, unfortunately, he passed away just after he was nicely retired, with esophageal cancer. He passed away within two weeks.

My question to the member: Would you like to see multiple exposures covered in presumptive coverage, such as we’ve discussed?