COLUMNIST

Justice is finally coming to dozens of elderly, frail widows whose husbands were used as human guinea pigs by the Canadian military during government-run tests of chemical warfare toxins.

The widows were shut out of a government compensation program over a bureaucratic glitch, and have been fighting a bitter battle for their due.

Last week, Graham secured cabinet approval to issue special $24,000 cheques to each of the widows or other family members.

From 1941-1970, more than 3,600 young army recruits stationed in Ottawa and Suffield, Alta., were doused in chemical warfare agents, jammed into trenches soaked in toxic mustard gas, and forced to breathe poisonous fumes.

The tests left most of the men scarred for life, with serious health ailments from cancer to chronic heart, respiratory and skin problems, blindness and impotence.

Last year, on the eve of the federal election, the government agreed to pay $24,000 in compensation to each of the victims -- or, given that most of the veterans are dead, to their families.

So far, about 700 cases have been settled.

But there is one hitch: A widow or other family member has to provide the government with a copy of the victim's will before a claim can be processed. No will, no compensation.

It should have come as no surprise to the bright lights in government that many of the chemical testing victims died without a will.

Finally, following our story, the defence minister personally intervened with the bureaucrats.

"I kept saying to my officials, 'Look we have to resolve this,'" Graham said. "Those people are elderly. You know, they are pensioners wrangling over legalities as they get older every day."

To get around the legal tangle of who should get a dead victim's compensation cheque when there is no will, the Defence officials devised a new rule.

Calling it a "very fair and practical solution," Graham said the government is simply cutting special cheques to whichever family member was caring for the victim at the time of his death.

"It will at least ensure that the person who was the primary caregiver is the person who is getting the compensation, and I have to believe that would have been the case if there had been a will."

The problem was so silly, the solution so simple, the big wonder is why it took more than a year, a Sun expose, and a public uproar to fix the mess.

No matter. Graham deserves credit for finally giving the bureaucracy a collective head shake.

Graham also told me he is equally determined to find a solution to the much larger and thornier issue of compensating the potentially thousands of Canadian veterans poisoned by deadly "Agent Orange" herbicides in the 1960s.

Combing old files

The Defence Department has admitted that the U.S. military was allowed to test Agent Orange for use in the Vietnam War by spraying it on the Canadian military base at Gagetown, New Brunswick, around 1966.

Exposure to Agent Orange has been linked to a long list of cancers and other diseases, and even genetic defects in children.

As we reported in this space a week ago, the Canadian Department of Veterans' Affairs has now accepted two compensation claims from former Gagetown soldiers that their exposure to Agent Orange gave them terminal cancer.

Since our story appeared, Veterans' Affairs has been flooded with inquiries, and a litany of health-related horror stories from military families who were stationed at Gagetown during the Agent Orange tests.

The defence minister says his department is combing old files to try to identify the many thousands of veterans who would have been at Gagetown around 1966.

"We're telling veterans, 'Look, if you are concerned about this, for heaven's sakes get in touch with us, and we'll help put together a case,'" Graham says.

"We do have to compensate the people who were exposed (to Agent Orange) -- there is no question of that."