After years of living in poverty, an indigenous ex-cop finally compensated $630K in missed pay due to PTSD.

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Kirti Pathak
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Indigenous ex-cop

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Ralph Thistle, a former Toronto police officer, says he has finally been able to establish a well and running water at the modest cottage he shares with his service dog Rupert near Mt. Forest, Ont. Thistle's decade-long battle with Ontario's Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) ended last week when he opened his mailbox and discovered a stack of cheques totaling $630 000.

The money started flowing a week after an investigation began about why WSIB had taken more than nine months to pay Thistle the money his appeal tribunal determined he was owed because his career was cut short in 2007 due to the post-traumatic stress disorder he developed during his 29-year police career.

The funds span the period between 2007 (when Thistle unexpectedly resigned from the force, just months before becoming eligible for a pension) and next year when he might have retired. Thistle's predicament drove him into poverty and homelessness. In 2015, he finally moved into his cabin, which had no running water.

Due to his PTSD, Thistle described seeing the cheques as both a comfort and an upsetting experience. According to the WSIB's public affairs manager, while the tribunal awarded Thistle 15 and a half years in lost earnings, it did not specify how much money he was owed.

"We make every effort to deliver rehabilitation and health treatments, as well as benefit payments, as soon as possible," Christine Arnott said in an emailed statement to CBC News. "In some cases, gathering all of the information and papers required to compute applicable payouts may take longer than any of us would prefer, especially for claims dating back many years."

toronto-police-officer ontarios-workplace-safety insurance-board-wsib wsibs ptsd thistle-15
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