Women's group irked over Agent Orange compensation
Published Monday October 19th, 2009
Protest | Widows on the War Path say their were treated unfairly by Ottawa
HALIFAX - A group of women who lost their husbands to illnesses they have linked to the spraying of Agent Orange in New Brunswick several decades ago staged a protest in Halifax on Saturday.
The women say they were disqualified from a compensation package offered two years ago by the federal government to people who lived around Canadian Forces Base Gagetown when the spraying by the U.S. military took place.
The Widows on a War Path want Ottawa to apologize and provide monetary relief.
"We are a group of determined women," organizer Bette Hudson told ATV News. "We are going to continue this fight until there is some resolution ... and they can help us by apologizing and by compensating these women."
Ottawa announced a $95.6-million compensation package in the fall of 2007 for veterans and civilians affected by the U.S. military's spraying of Agent Orange during the 1960s.
The federal government provided one-time $20,000 ex-gratia payments that were limited to people alive on Feb. 6, 2006 - the date the Conservatives came to power - and could show illness before April 1.
As of June 15, the department had received 3,837 applications for the ex-gratia payment of $20,000. Of that number, 2,492 of the applicants qualified and 1,004 didn't.
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Are the survivors and widows of the Gagetown tragedy not as worthy of out tax $?
How much did it cost to coax a dog off of the ice this spring. With wages and everything from everyone involved I suggest tens of thousands. PRIORITIES?
In fact, we should have an Agent Orange day in Canada set aside for the awarding of this compensation (not ex gratia, that implies a lack of culpability) to the families of the soldiers poisoned in CFB Gagetown by Ottawa. The inescapable and unforgivable facts of the matter are that the Canadian government:
(A) contaminated hundreds of thousands of its own citizens with
(B) millions of pounds of chemical weapons and then
(C) deliberately covered it up for 50 years.