How Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc’s life was saved by a 20-year-old German college student

As the minister responsible for Canada-U.S. Trade, intergovernmental affairs and Prime Minister Mark Carney’s “One Canadian Economy” portfolio, Dominic LeBlanc will face many obstacles in the days and weeks ahead. But the veteran Liberal minister is no stranger to a challenge, having overcome a rare form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma more than five years ago thanks to a stem cell donation from Germany. LeBlanc reflected on his battle over the weekend, sharing a memory of visiting with his donor, Jonathan Kehl, on social media. “Two years ago, Jonathan, the brave young man who saved my life, welcomed Jolene (Richard) and me to his family’s home town in Germany, Bad Hersefeld,” he posted along with two photos of himself and his wife with the now 26-year-old and his family members. “I will cherish this moment and remember his kindness, and that of his family, forever.”

Two years ago, Jonathan, the brave young man who saved my life, welcomed Jolene and me to his family’s home town in...Posted by Dominic LeBlanc on Sunday, May 25, 2025

LeBlanc ‘was as yellow as a lemon … and had lost a lot of weight’ In April 2019, while overseeing intergovernmental affairs, northern affairs and internal trade under then-prime minister Justin Trudeau, a 51-year-old LeBlanc, feeling particularly unwell, was informed by Moncton doctors he had a “lethal form” of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. His only chance at survival: “very aggressive” chemotherapies and a stem cell donation via an allogeneic transplant — obtaining healthy stem cells from a donor who is not identical to the recipient. In an interview with DKMS , the German-based international blood science organization that ultimately paired him with Kehl, LeBlanc said it took doctors a few weeks to figure out the “right recipe of chemotherapy” to get his cancer into remission before referring him to Montreal’s Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital, a facility renowned for its expertise in hematology and stem cell transplants. “He was as yellow as a lemon because of the liver failure and had lost a lot of weight,” Dr. Sylvie Lachance, who oversaw his care, told Reader’s Digest Canada in 2023. But LeBlanc, who’d announced he’d won a battle with leukemia the year prior , was optimistic and said doctors were, too, reminding him that even if his younger sister, Genevieve ,  was not a match, the DKMS’s global registry of potential bone marrow donors offered added hope. His sister’s blood ended up being incompatible, but a perfect match showed up through the database several weeks later, and the anonymous donor agreed to the procedure. International rules prohibit doctors from divulging the identity of the donor to the recipient for two years, but LeBlanc wondered if his potential saviour might be based in Germany, “just because they had said that so many Germans are in the database, and the German people are so generous when they’re asked to donate.” On the other side of the Atlantic, a 20-year-old Kehl, who’d registered as a donor while still in high school two years earlier, was living with his parents in the Hesse state town of Bad Hersfeld when he was told he was a perfect match with a Canadian man. “I could have said no, but I agreed,” Kehl told Reader’s Digest. “I wanted to save a life! It was a really emotional moment for me, and for my family, who encouraged me to donate.” In early September, he travelled to Frankfurt to have his stem cells collected, after which they were flown to Montreal, where LeBlanc awaited, having just finished a final round of chemotherapy to prepare his body for the transplant. “So you’re obviously not feeling a great deal of energy. All my hair had fallen out. I probably lost 35 pounds,” he said to DKMS. “But the doctors were very positive. They said I was ready to receive the transplant. And I’ll never forget when the nurse comes in to the hospital room and shows you the bag of stem cells, it was maybe half a litre in a bag that had a whole series of stickers of different barcodes on it.” The procedure itself took just two hours to introduce the 570,000,000 stem cells into his bloodstream, followed by a waiting period to see if new blood cells regenerated. “I was afraid it hadn’t worked until Dr. Lachance came into my room with a smile and told me the neutrophils — the white blood cells — had materialized,” LeBlanc said to Reader’s Digest. After several weeks of isolation to protect and rebuild a severely weakened immune system, during which he was elected for the seventh straight time as the member of parliament for Beauséjour in the federal election, LeBlanc was discharged in November. He returned to Parliament in January. Blood brothers: ‘This young man saved my life’ LeBlanc said he first filled out the form to learn his donor’s identity about a year after the transplant, and he got an email with Kehl’s name and date of birth in October 2021. “What struck me on the information I got is that he was born in 1999,” LeBlanc said to DKMS. “I didn’t imagine that the donor would have just been 20 years old when he donated the stem cells.” His team quickly obtained Kehl’s contact information so LeBlanc could send him a personal message of thanks. He even contacted Stéphane Dion, the Canadian ambassador to Germany, to find out which translation agency they use for official correspondence. Kehl responded in English, which he told Leblanc he’d been studying since childhood.

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COVID-19’s Omicron wave delayed an in-person meeting, but the pair chatted on Zoom just before Christmas and agreed to get together when travel rules allowed. That meeting happened the following September when Kehl visited Canada as LeBlanc’s special guest. “This young man saved my life,” LeBlanc said, introducing Kehl in Ottawa, where the young German also met Trudeau and conducted media interviews before the pair went to Montreal and then to New Brunswick for two days of salmon fishing.

This week is a very special one for me. Jonathan Kehl, the young German man who donated some of his stem cells to save my life, is visiting me here in Canada. pic.twitter.com/LLN9lli8Lu— Dominic LeBlanc (@DLeBlancNB) September 27, 2022

Kehl returned the favour in May 2023, inviting LeBlanc and Richard to Bad Hersfeld to meet his family. “He and I have a special bond,” LeBlanc wrote on Twitter at the time. “Indeed, we have the exact same blood and immune system. Because three and a half years ago, he answered the call to donate some of his stem cells to a man whom he knew was very sick, but whose identity was not known to him at the time.” For his part, Kehl told Reader’s Digest that should LeBlanc require more stem cells, he’s ready to donate again. “I consider Mr. LeBlanc to be my genetic twin,” he said.

Last September, I had the pleasure of welcoming Jonathan Kehl to Canada. Jonathan is an exceptional young man from Bad Hersfeld, a town outside of Frankfurt, Germany - and today, his family welcomed Jolène and me as though we were family. He and I have a special bond. pic.twitter.com/5a9R2XpAqB— Dominic LeBlanc (@DLeBlancNB) May 24, 2023

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