CFB Gagetown Parliamentary Hearings: Chemical Defoliants Agents White, Orange, Purple

Agent Orange DND Base Gagetown

Agent Orange Gagetown -- Anger flares at N.B. Agent Orange meeting CTV.ca News Staff, June 24, 05

On Tuesday, Karen Ellis, an assistant deputy minister with the Defence Department told a parliamentary committee: "It is extremely unlikely that individuals travelling through the Gagetown test area, even shortly after spraying, could have received exposure to Agent Orange of any health significance. [. . . . ]

Her statement was greeted with derision at the meeting. It seems that spraying was carried out over 30 years and it affected not just the base, but nearby citizens and areas including market gardens whose owners received some monetary compensation at the time. The presentations at the hearings were informative.


Military accused of lying about Agent Orange CBC News, 23 Jun 2005

[. . . . ] The hearing at the base followed a CBC News report that revealed Agent Purple, considered three times more toxic than the cancer-linked Agent Orange, was also sprayed on the base in 1966.

"We cut it, we ingested the fumes, we burned it, therefore we inhaled the smoke ... and when it came time to eat, we sat down among all the toxins and we ate lunch with our bare hands." [. . . . ]

Spraying was 'small scale,' DND says. [. . . . ]

According to an affected individual, there were over 1,000,000 litres of chemical defoliant sprayed in the area over thirty years.

One man brandished documents [obtained from DND, I believe] that estimate more than 6,000 barrels of defoliants were used, starting in the 1950s.

Military accused of lying about Agent Orange CBC News, 23 Jun 2005


N.B. army base sprayed with toxic chemicals -- spraying Agent Purple or Agent Orange. CBC News, 13 Jun 2005

The retired sergeant, [Earl Graves, Black Watch Regiment] who is now president of the regiment's New Brunswick chapter, said the soldiers were told to cover their heads when the planes flew by [. . . . ]

Graves said 170 soldiers in his regiment died of cancer and many of them died young. [. . . . ]

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