All of them are Canadian citizens — recent Afghan immigrants who were recruited directly by the Department of National Defence at the start of the combat mission in Kandahar. The Department of National Defence (DND) told the advisers to take their claims to the Ontario Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) — which has no experience with evaluating claims based on service in a war zone. "This has not been a traditional claims process," said Joshua Juneau, an Ottawa lawyer who worked with 20 former advisers to help prepare their claims. A teacher in his former life, Bashir Jamalzadah was 55 when he went to war as a contract employee of the Department of National Defence. DND has repeatedly defended its approach to the advisers' claims, saying that under federal legislation, all injured federal employees — regardless of whether they served in war zones — are sent to the Ontario workplace safety board.

Source: CBC News November 15, 2020 09:11 UTC