Widows on the warpath for compensation

A number of military widows told the Veterans Affairs Committee this morning that the
government's compensation package for Agent Orange exposure is a sham.

Widows who form the group "Military Widows on the Warpath" told how they've been blocked from compensation because their husbands died before the government's arbitrary cutoff date of February 2006.

They also described layers of red tape that are preventing families from getting compensation, including demands for eyewitnesses and hefty archival fees to find documents.

Widows pointed to the United States, where a presumptive clause means any veteran serving where Agent Orange was sprayed is automatically compensated when he or she develops health problems. The United States also includes more illnesses on its list of dioxin-related conditions.

The U.S. military tested deadly herbicides Agent Orange, Agent Purple and Agent White at CFB Gagetown in New Brunswick during 1966 and 1967.

The widows also pointed out some caretakers and other families have
received the $20,000 ex gratia payment for such unrelated problems as carpal tunnel syndrome.

"That's not fair," said widow Carletta Matheson. "They want dates. I want to know where the fairness is."

Conservative MP Greg Kerr tried to defend the government's compensation program, saying no other government had ever done anything on the issue.

"Nobody is going to correctly satisfy this," he argued.

Liberal MP Judy Sgro tabled a motion at the committee calling for a full judicial inquiry into the entire Gagetown herbicide spraying program, which lasted from 1956 to 1984 and included a wide range of commercially-available herbicides such as 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D.

CFB Gagetown was and remains a heavily-forested military base. For decades the Canadian military sought ways to clear large sections of land to avoid brush and forest fires during military exercises that used live ammunition.