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'I would have died': Minister LeBlanc meets man behind life-saving stem cell transplant

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Ottawa -

A stem cell transplant will forever connect Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc with a young man from Germany.

"I would have died," LeBlanc told Evan Solomon on CTV News Channel's Power Play on Monday. The minister was diagnosed with an aggressive blood cancer called non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2019.

Jonathan Kehl was just 21 years old when he appeared in a registry as a match for LeBlanc. The two men were strangers to each other when Kehl made the donation. They would learn about each other two years after the transplant.

LeBlanc and Kehl met in person in Ottawa for the first time Sunday. They say it’s been an emotional 24 hours.

"If they hadn’t found the perfect genetic match with the same blood type, and it was this remarkable young man in Germany … I absolutely wouldn’t have seen the fall of 2019," LeBlanc said.

Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Jonathan Kehl discuss the stem cell transplant in the video at the top of this article. 

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