Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, and thank you for having us.
I am Bette Hudson, a Widow on a Warpath.
Before continuing, I wish to introduce to you three of our members who have journeyed with us. They are Abbie Magee, a civilian widow; and Judith Wright and Gwen Knox, military widows.
As well, we have Daniel Feighery here. Daniel is making a documentary on Gagetown on the agent orange issue.
I did not come here to blame parties. I came to state concerns regarding the treatment of widows by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Government of Canada.
I represent a group of 100 widows who have grave concerns. Without great elaboration, we have all lost our husbands too soon because of the colossal blunder of spraying agent orange and other chemicals at and near Base Gagetown in the fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, and beyond. We need answers and we need closure. We depend on this committee to provide these answers. Justice and righting the wrongs of the past can and should be done here today.
To begin, we have been unjustly treated regarding compensation through the ex gratia payment of $20,000. From the day of the ex gratia announcement on September 12, 2007, widows were eliminated by a date--February 6, 2006. Our husbands were to have died on or after that date.
Ladies and gentlemen, do you think for one second they wanted to die? Worse still, do you think they should have died on a date of a government's choosing? How awful that a political date was chosen, the date the current government was sworn in.
We note that the end date of April 1, 2009, has been extended--one door opened, the other slammed in our faces. We stood no chance of receiving this payment because of the date. If you apply for yourself, you must suffer one of the approved illnesses. As caregivers, as each one of us was, the same thing applies. You must be ill. If you are reasonably healthy, forget it. Fairness? I don't think so.
Adding insult to injury, it was announced that any leftover moneys would be returned to general revenue. In other words, widows and their families are not worthy. Compensation for all victims of this tragedy was promised. This is a broken promise.
We would like something done about it. Yesterday we presented our demands. I hope everybody got a copy of those demands. If you didn't, we can supply them at the end of this session.
Very quickly, here are some--and there are many more--problems with widowed applicants for an agent orange pension: one, impossible and unrealistic proof; for example, the husbands were to have been soaked in agent orange; two, one widow was told by VAC that to receive her husband's documents, she must pay a $260 archival fee; three, the process of getting information from doctors and hospitals, etc., is time-consuming and expensive; four, repeating your story to umpteen employees because no one really knows your file; five, witnesses who are not believed must have another witness for the witness; six, numerous letters from Veterans Affairs are signed by different people; seven, general feeling of hopelessness, helplessness; eight, widows who receive letters addressed to their deceased husbands--one letter was received on the eleventh anniversary of his death, addressed to him.
There are many, many problems.
We're not youngsters anymore, but we fight for what is right. We will continue until we receive justice for them. We speak for them, they can't. We are not going away. When we are gone, our children will take it up. This tragedy cannot be forgotten. People are suffering, they are dying. Unfortunately, generations to come have the same fate. Please help us do something about this.
Thank you.