Veterans Affairs Committee on Dec. 8th, 2009

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

I'm just asking that it be distributed. Most committees distribute whatever motions they have legitimately before the committee at the beginning of the committee.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you. We can do that.

The next questioner is a Bloc Québécois member.

Mr. André, you have seven minutes.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Good morning, ladies.

I have great appreciation for what you're doing. First of all, I'd like to commend you. I think you are doing difficult work in a context where you have been victims of grave injustice on the part of the federal government in relation to the agent orange issue.

In 2006, I believe, before the Conservative Party came to power, the current minister, Mr. Thompson, had taken several steps in the House calling for compensation for victims of agent orange. I would like to hear what you have to say regarding the recommendations the minister made at the time for victims of agent orange.

Further, I would like to discuss medical assessments. Are doctors currently in a position to correctly and specifically determine who, among the people who have been affected, including your spouses but also your children, were victims of agent orange? There has been a rather widespread effect on families.

Third, is $20,000 in compensation enough?

[Bette Jean Hudson]

Could you repeat the first part of your question? I didn't quite hear it.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

When Minister Thompson was in opposition, he commented on several occasions. I recall that when I first arrived in the House, in 2005 or thereabouts, he rose a number of times to call for compensation for the victims of agent orange. What were his recommendations?

[Bette Jean Hudson]

The recommendation he was making at the time, and he was quite adamant about it in the House of Commons, was that all victims be compensated, every victim of agent orange from 1956 to 1984. Victims from that era were all to be compensated. He was banging on the desk and what have you to compensate everybody, but when he got into government, that changed. He began to find reasons why certain people weren't going to get compensated. Things changed quickly when he got into government.

Margaret, would you like to add anything, or Carletta?

[Margaret Hogan]

I think the goals and the objectives of the minister changed once he came into power. When you stand up and make statements indicating that all victims of agent orange will be compensated, and then you're stuck with the year 1966 and 1967 after the fact... There are changes in direction in the goals and objectives of the minister. I believe they changed once he came into power. I know he did want an inquiry at one time; however, since he has come into power that also has fallen by the wayside.

Something changed there.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

My second question had to do with medical assessment. From a medical standpoint, are physicians currently in a position to specifically, and beyond a reasonable doubt, identify individuals who would have been victims of agent orange?

[Margaret Hogan]

When the physicians are asking for medical history, they're not looking at the environment. They never did. They're looking at who has what down the family line. But in order to make a true diagnosis, they need to take into consideration the environment from which you come and not necessarily who your mother is and what she had. They need to look at the environment as well.

Let's face it, some of these chemicals will attach to the DNA fat cells. It is passed through; it is fat soluble. It attaches to the fat, and it can come from animals and be transferred into humans. From DND's own documents, it indicates they were concerned that the short-term exposure of such a chemical would cause long-term health issues. We're seeing those long-term health issues now. We're seeing it now.

Some doctors can make the connection if they're into environmental studies and are looking at environmental medicine. But if you take a country doctor who is a family physician and knows families and what have you, they're not looking at that aspect of the connection. It is difficult for some of the doctors to make the connection when they're not using the environmental science or the chemical aspect. When a patient is sick and they don't know why, why not send them for testing to see if they have these chemicals in their body, instead of going through a different route in other areas?

[B. Lorraine Bartlett]

I'd like to speak to that from my personal experience with my daughter when she was born. It took almost three years before they labelled her, and they still weren't sure of the label, but she has the worst-case scenario of this very rare condition. We went though I don't know how many different geneticists at the beginning. As Margie said, the first thing they say is that it's in the family. We went through everything, and for want of anything else, they said it was hereditary. It was terrible.

First we were dealing with health issues. She was very seriously ill. We felt as if we were responsible for what had happened to Tracy because of the lack of knowledge of what had happened. Was I a drinker? Was I on drugs? Were Jimmy and I related? We went through that whole scenario, and I can't describe to you the hell we went through in those first few years.

Even to this day, as I mentioned in my talk, the doctors are flying by the seat of their pants. They don't know what's wrong with her. In the last few years she started having seizures, but they're not really seizures. They're calling them seizures for want of calling them anything else. She flat-lines. She's just there, hardly breathing. We don't know what causes it or how long she'll be in it. She was like that for five hours on one occasion. They worked on her like you wouldn't believe, but they don't know.

A year and a half ago she went into one of these, and the doctors hospitalized her just to see if it would happen again. But of course Tracy fooled them, as she always does. Nothing happened, so they sent her home. The doctor spoke with me very nicely and said, “I don't want to tell you not to bring your daughter into the hospital. But when she comes in here, we have to poke and probe.” At one point they tried about 15 to 20 times to get an IV into her, because her veins are so tiny and they couldn't do it. That's very painful for her. He said, “Maybe you should just keep her home if it happens again and hold her hand. If you bring her in here, we're going to treat her and it's going to be painful for her. But there's absolutely nothing we can do to bring her out of this. She comes out of it on her own, for whatever reason.”

The doctors are not looking at the environmental issues. Was it the chemicals? Is her condition the result of the spraying of agent orange?

I forgot to mention before that I have three stories: my husband's story, my son's story, and my daughter's story. I gave them to the clerk, and he can pass them out. They will give you a little more information about what our lives have been like because of all of this.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Madam Bartlett.

Merci, monsieur André.

We'll go to Mr. Stoffer for five minutes.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.

To all of you, thank you very much for sharing your stories with us. I know having to relive this every day of your lives goes to the old saying that for those who serve, Remembrance Day is every day, and to their families left behind, it's every minute of every day.

I'll give a little history here beforehand. As you know, the previous government, when the minister was there—and they were honest about it—said they would only compensate, for 1966-67, the agent orange aspect alone. I remember going after them, and the current minister, who was in opposition, Mr. Thompson, said the same thing. He said that was not enough. I remember very well the meeting in Gagetown when he said that every single person from 1956 to 1984 will be compensated and a public inquiry will be initiated. I remember those words very clearly. It never happened.

In fact, they did exactly what the previous government was offering, a 1966-67 compensation package only. For the life of me, I don't really think Mr. Thompson himself wanted that to happen, but somebody somewhere in the bowels of government said, “This is the way it's going to be, end of conversation”, and thus we had this out. I simply cannot believe the mistakes, though, that were happening. You were told that you got the compensation in the lists, but you never received it, and a civilian received $20,000 for carpal tunnel syndrome? It's incredible, and these are questions we're going to be asking DVA officials in the future.

My question for you is this. Just recently the Government of Canada announced an inquiry on the Fraser River salmon, which we had asked for and which we received. Many people from the Agent Orange Association across the country have called me and asked, “If they can call an inquiry on fish stocks, which is important, couldn't they then call an inquiry on the lives of people who served their country from 1956 onward?” That's my first question for you.

My second one for you is, have you had an opportunity yourselves to speak directly with the Prime Minister of Canada? I would highly recommend that if you get an opportunity, speak to him directly, as other people have done when they've come to Ottawa, and address your concerns directly with him. I can only assume that if the Prime Minister himself gets a five- or ten-minute session with you, I think maybe, just maybe, he might be sympathetic enough to get the wheels of government turning in your favour.

I'm personally sorry for what you and your families are going through. One of the concerns here, of course, is that we say agent orange, but it's not just agent orange, it's all the other chemicals that were sprayed before. Many people didn't serve in 1966-67, they served before and after, and they have died because of chemical spraying. I'd like you to elaborate a bit more on that as well, please.

Once again, thank you to each and every one of you for coming.

[Bette Jean Hudson]

Could we ask Daniel Feighery to come up and answer your question on chemicals?

[Daniel Feighery, Director of film "Gagetown", As an Individual]

Can you repeat the question, please?

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

The question was this. We talked about agent orange from 1966-67 as the limit of compensation because that's when the Americans were involved in that. But the reality is that chemicals were sprayed long before that and long after that—not just agent orange, but a variety of other toxic chemicals that, although I'm not a medical scientist, I believe would have detrimental effects on people's health currently and their future offspring as well.

[Daniel Feighery]

That's right.

I've interviewed a number of medical scientists—

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Excuse me for interrupting. What is Mr. Daniel's position? What does he do in life; in what way is he qualified to provide us with information?

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Well, sir, he just wants to know who you are and why you're here.

[Daniel Feighery]

My name is Daniel Feighery. I've been following the Widows on a Warpath since June 2008. I feel as though I know their story inside out.

I've been doing a documentary on Gagetown and the entire spray program for two years. My family was personally affected. My grandfather served on the base. My mother grew up on the base. And my sister was born with spina bifida, a birth defect associated with agent orange. That's what prompted me to start the film. My sister received $20,000 from the Canadian government, and I didn't know why, so I looked into it. So that's why I began this process.

I met the widows. And I started interviewing dozens of people, including the minister himself, Elizabeth May, Judy Sgro, and many people in this room.

With regard to the chemicals, agent orange and agent purple were used on the base from 1956 until 1967. They weren't called agent orange and agent purple at the time, because those are American military code names. These chemicals were available commercially. They were used all across Canada.

After 1967 and a spray plane accident that caused the Government of Canada to compensate a number of farmers to the tune of $250,000, which was a lot of money in the 1960s, the Canadian military switched to tordon 101. It is known by the Americans as agent white, and it is contaminated with a chemical known as picloram. This is found in hexachlorobenzene.

These chemicals cause a wide range of illnesses that are not on any of these lists of illnesses recognized for this compensation package. I could go on and on about the chemicals, but I think that's pretty much...

The other really important thing to say is that agent white was used on the base until 2001. At that point they switched to glyphosate herbicides.

The chemical program continues to this day. The government did testing on the base and found 2,4,5-T, which was last sprayed in 1967. It's supposed to have a half-life of less than a year. How are they finding chemicals 40 years later on the base and then claiming this base is safe? Troops are training there right now to go to Afghanistan. This base is still contaminated.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

My other point for you folks was the inquiry. Why do you think an inquiry hasn't been called yet?

[Margaret Hogan]

Because it's going to uncover more issues. It's going to bring to light the unfairness, the injustices, and the blunders. The way errors are continuing to happen is almost like slapstick comedy, in a sick way. And I think to save face is why it has not been called yet.

When it is called, it is so important that someone represents the civilians to oversee and help them with the inquiry, the errors, and the blunders, and to work with them to make it right, if there is a way of doing that. But I do believe this is why it has not been called.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Now we're going to move to the Conservative Party for seven minutes.

Mr. Kerr.

[Greg Kerr, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for coming today. We fully appreciate how difficult this is for each of you. Certainly, the amount of time and suffering is real. Nobody doubts that. I think everybody around this committee, in looking at the issues, tries to be open and fair. I'm going to disagree a little with some of the comments made, but I want to explain why and see what your response might be.

I want to point out that, going right back to the 1960s, governments failed to deal with the issue. So when it was dealt with, there were going to be problems. I think Ms. Sgro would agree with this. I think everybody recognized that. As time went by, it became more difficult to do the job correctly and resolve the issues. As your stories today attest, the amount of complications and challenges are huge. There's no question about that.

I also want to put on record that we keep talking about compensation. This is recognition of time passed, and a lot of the records are so old they could not be dealt with. The $20,000 payments aren't for the injuries or suffering of any individual. They're given in recognition that those individuals were affected by this issue. Therefore the recognition, the amount of money, does not necessarily equate directly with any one individual's suffering. It was done. Nearly 2,700 people have received it.

I'm not sure there's a right or wrong. I wanted to note that the very study the former Liberal government put together became the basis for the jump-off point. What has become apparent is that there cannot be an exactly correct record. I notice Minister Thompson's name came up several times. He is the first minister of any Government of Canada to bring about a recognition of suffering and a payment for it. I think that's important for the record. Whatever government did it, there were going to be challenges, questions, and difficulties. As we're finding out, the story is not over yet.

If you stood back and looked at it objectively, you'd have to say that this federal government is the only government in the history of Canada that has provided compensation for a problem admittedly too horrific to be satisfied solely by financial means. It's easy to take potshots and point out what was or wasn't said. The usual date for compensation in government starts when the government was sworn in, which happens to be the case here. It doesn't mean this is the point in history that makes it right or wrong, but this is the normal thing for governments to do, to begin with the day they became the government.

We're here to try to learn more. The questions and answers put forth today are on record and are looked at carefully. When Ms. Sgro asked about the inquiry, she was talking about an inquiry on the whole issue. I got the sense that the inquiry you want is just about payments. If there's a further look, it's a look at the whole thing to show how difficult it is to end up doing the correct thing.

It's important that we continue with this issue; it's not going away. We need to remind ourselves that other jurisdictions are looking at it. The American example, by the way, is a compensation. It's not an ex gratia payment; it's a compensation program. That means there are different criteria. This gets into pensions and all kinds of other things as well.

What I'd like to do is get your comments, as the whole process moves forward. It's been a long time coming—there's no question about it.

I start with the premise that, okay, mistakes have been made, and I don't think anybody is going to disagree that maybe mistakes were made. I start with the premise that, okay, something has been done. If something had not been done in 2006, then nothing would have been done and we would be in the mess where nobody received anything. I think it's important to look at that. I know you're saying, how do we move on and push it further?

Having made those points, I would open it up if you would like to comment or make further suggestions. I would certainly welcome that. I don't want to go to a specific question at this point.

[Carletta Matheson]

The most important thing that I see is the dates. We stood in Gagetown, and Thompson stood right there, and we battled, every one of us. But he stood there and said, point blank, “These dates--d-a-t-e-s--will never change”. Now, where is the fairness? They couldn't open up our door, but they let them slide through the front door. That's not fair. That is not fair.

We're talking about fairness here. Tell me where the fairness is.

Dates are what we're talking about. We can't open one door, but we can open and slide people through the second door. That's not fair.

[Greg Kerr, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

When you say open one and close the other, are you talking about the start date and the finish date?