Widows protest exclusion from Agent Orange compensation program

About two dozen military widows marched outside the gates at CFB Gagetown Wednesday morning to protest the fact they have been left out of the federal government'scompensation programfor people exposed to Agent Orange at the New Brunswick base in the 1960s.

Calling themselves Military Widows on the War Path, the group has about 80 members across the country, according to founder Bette Hudson.

It's made up of widows who did not qualify for compensation under the tight restrictions placed on the payments when the government announced it in 2007.

"I wasn't eligible because [my husband] didn't die on or after Feb. 6, 2006. He was to have died on or after that date. And he died in 2004," Hudson said recently.

Wednesday was the deadline for people to apply for compensation, and Hudson's group has been campaigning unsuccessfully to havethe deadline changed so its members can continue to lobby for changes thatwould allow them to claim compensation.

"We want some justice for our husbands, for our children, for our grandchildren. That's why we're here. We want the government to change its dates.

"Change the dates and give the widows, their children and their grandchildren here something here to look forward to, not generations damaged by Agent Orange," she said Wednesday.

The compensation program has received almost 3,400 applications for compensation so far, and approved almost 2,200 of them.

The maximum amount of compensation is $20,000.

Among the women at the Gagetown gates Wednesday was Vera Dakin, whose husband died of cancer at the age of 70.

"We came here in 1962, and he was on this base here for 18 years, and out in the area that was being sprayed [with Agent Orange]. He was there every summer pretty much," Dakin said.

She said her husband often came home sick, had stomach surgery in his twenties and died of cancer at 70.

On Sept. 12, 2007, the federal government announced a one-time, lump-sum payment of $20,000 each would be paid to those who qualified for compensation from health problems they say are caused by the defoliants.

The U.S. military tested Agent Orange, Agent Purple and several other powerful defoliants on a small section of the base over seven days in 1966 and 1967.

The government's offer included tight restrictions, with payments only available to veterans and civilians who worked on or lived within five kilometres of the base between 1966 and 1967, and only those who have illnesses associated with Agent Orange exposure.

The payments were also limited to people still living on Feb. 6, 2006 the date the Conservatives came to office.