Mr. Speaker, on May 5 on the 55th anniversary of the end of the fighting in Europe, an unusual ceremony took place at Canadian Forces Base Suffield in Alberta. It was to honour the nearly 2,000 Canadian soldiers who volunteered during the second world war to take part as human guinea pigs in trials with mustard gas.
During the war the allies were convinced that Germany would soon resort to chemical weapons of which mustard gas was the most fearsome of all. It does not kill; it incapacitates by inflicting huge blisters on the skin, on the soft parts of the body, in the joints and groin areas and around the eyes.
In order quickly to develop medical and technical countermeasures, Canada opened a weapons proving ground at Suffield where these very same injuries were inflicted on our own soldiers in simulated battle conditions. They suffered in body and sometimes in mind that their comrades in arms would be spared the horrors of chemical warfare. Their story remained unknown for nearly half a century. Now it is known and at last their country has thanked them.