Thanks very much for the question.
I actually had the pleasure of serving in Moose Jaw for three years. I was the Snowbirds flight surgeon for three years, from 1983 to 1986. I would have to say, actually, that when this issue came to the fore, I was astounded. As the base surgeon in Moose Jaw, I had no knowledge whatsoever of there being contaminated sites present at that time.
Now, that was in the eighties, and I must admit that we've moved forward on how we think about that. For me, the problem is the disconnect between all the different parties that potentially could be affected. We have three groups on any given base that can be affected. There are the uniformed members and the civilian employees, and then there are the families, many of whom live on the base or in the base environs. They do not have an integrated medical provision system.
The uniformed personnel receive their medical care from uniformed or, often now, contract doctors. Civilian employees are responsible for getting their own health care in the local area. They are supposed to be watched by occupational health from Health Canada, but given the numbers, that's probably not going to happen very efficiently. There are small numbers of employees, and you're not going to dedicate an occupational health physician—or even an occupational health nurse—to 60, 70 or even 200 employees. It's not within the resources of the department.
Last but not least, the poor families.... Els bumped around with me for 29 years and went through so many different doctors that we can't keep track of them all. I had 11 different postings in 11 different places. My medical documents follow me when I go from one posting to another. For the families, that doesn't happen, and every province has its own system.