For the first time in Quebec, a worker with Parkinson’s has seen his condition recognized as an occupational disease. Last week, a researcher exposed for more than 20 years to pesticides won his case in court. It will therefore affect the compensation provided for by law.
This precedent-setting decision looks like a sad twist of fate: the sick worker, Gérald Chouinard, 59, is an entomology researcher who has been studying alternatives to chemical pesticides for decades to fight insect pests in orchards. .
Mr. Chouinard welcomes the judgment as “good news” and feels no bitterness towards his employer, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food of Quebec (MAPAQ). He emphasizes that mentalities have changed a lot about pesticides since the beginning of his career in the 1980s, and that today’s workers have the means to avoid exposure.
“In the years when I studied, we learned at school that these products were wonderful, that they killed the bad things while protecting the good ones. This is what has changed since then. Now we have no more excuses to be reckless,” he said in an interview with To have toinviting all exposed workers to protect themselves.
Recognize the toxicity of pesticides
Since September 2021, Parkinson’s disease has been one of the occupational diseases that benefit from the “presumption”, that is to say that it is up to the employer to bear the burden of proof if he wants to contest a claim. . However, since Mr. Chouinard’s illness predates, he himself had to demonstrate the link between his exposure and his illness.
“I find it really interesting to see that all the bodies of society are beginning to recognize the toxicity of pesticides,” reacts Romain Rigal, an administrator at the association Victimes des pesticides du Québec, who accompanied Mr. Chouinard in his efforts. After the scientific community, then the legislators of Quebec, it is now the legal arm of the State which is of this opinion, according to Mr. Rigal.
As part of his duties, Mr. Chouinard regularly went to orchards to observe the leaves of the vines and detect the presence of insects and mites. Sometimes he would go there right after pesticide application, especially in the 1990s, when “safe-entry deadlines”—periods of 12 hours to a few days when no one could work in treated areas—were less strictly observed.
According to his testimony, since 1992 he has been exposed to more than forty pesticides, such as mancozeb, paraquat, rotenone and glyphosate. Some of these products are now banned because of the health risks they pose, notes administrative judge Renaud Gauthier.
Mr. Chouinard’s first symptoms, which appeared in 2015, were mild, but worsened in the years that followed. In the grip of tremors, he consulted a doctor in 2018, who gave him a test. The diagnosis of parkinson falls on July 10, 2019. Three weeks later, Mr. Chouinard sends an initial complaint to the Commission for Standards, Equity, Health and Safety at Work (CNESST) to obtain recognition of his occupational disease.
In November 2019, the CNESST refused “on file” his claim, “without real analysis”, we read in the judgment. Mr. Chouinard therefore turned to the Administrative Labor Tribunal to contest the refusal, where the employer chose not to present any defence.
Burden of proof
In his decision rendered on June 1, Judge Gauthier decided: the worker “succeeds in demonstrating in a preponderant manner that Parkinson’s disease is directly related to the particular risks of his work”. The magistrate, however, refuses to apply retroactively the new version of the law on health and safety at work, adopted in the fall of 2021, which would have removed the burden of proof from the shoulders of Mr. Chouinard.
According to Linda Lauzon, a lawyer at Monette Barakett who specializes in occupational health and safety, this is “excellent judgment”, which makes sense, but which does not open the door wide to future claims from sick workers whose case is similar to that of Mr. Chouinard.
“We will still have to demonstrate that the client has been exposed, that he has been doing this work for years, etc. “, explains M.e Lauzon. “It won’t make a big difference: you will have to present a good file anyway,” she adds.
Mr. Chouinard now experiences “a panoply” of symptoms of Parkinson’s disease which, cumulatively, “are seriously disabling”. “I am no longer able to work full weeks,” he laments.
However, he does not regret having exercised the professions of agronomist and researcher in entomology, which he still enjoys practicing. “I want to continue working as long as I can, but I probably won’t be able to continue as long as I would like,” he observes.