(Ottawa) Ed Sweeney is sure there are others. Other members of the Armed Forces or members of their families who, like him and his family, drank the contaminated water that flowed from taps at the Valcartier base in the late 1990s.
This is why he urges the Ministry of Defense to agree to extend the registration period for the collective action obtained by those who have consumed water from a groundwater table where trichlorethylene (TCE), a solvent industrial.
Especially since the federal ministry, which was summoned by the Quebec Court of Appeal to give compensation jointly with a subsidiary of SNC, did very little to help identify the victims, denounces the former soldier.
“I’m sure there are still 500 to 800 eligible people to be found. There are in there, in my opinion, people who are not aware, including the former wives of certain colleagues who may not have been contacted, ”he says.
“However, if the government is looking for you because you owe taxes, it will find you fairly quickly,” scoffs the ex-soldier in an interview two days before the hearing before the Superior Court of Quebec on Wednesday.
The plaintiffs’ lawyers will demand a six-month extension, until July 15, in the hope of extending the list of people who can claim this compensation.
“Let the polluters pay”
The Court of Appeal ruled that anyone who lived in a residence supplied by the military base’s water distribution network between April 1995 and March 2000 is entitled to $1,000 per month of occupancy, in addition to $3,000 for one or more minor children.
“Me, all I want is for the polluters to pay. Here, there is the Government of Canada and SNC, which both dumped carcinogens intentionally and illicitly,” says environmentalist Daniel Green.
Because the sinews of war is money, he insists: “For me, it’s important, because every dollar that polluters pay, it creates a precedent that tells other polluters in Quebec to be careful, because they risk a lot. »
But now the National Defense “shirks the precedent” by “not identifying the victims”, regrets the former leader of the Society to overcome pollution. Former deputy leader of the Green Party, he kept his political family informed of the file.
His former accomplice Elizabeth May, who recently took over the reins of training in duo with Jonathan Pedneault, would have asked the Minister of Defense, Anita Anand, not to oppose an extension of the registration period.
The Ministry is silent on its intentions
The Ministry did not want to specify its intentions before the hearing. “Canada will present its case […] and will not discuss its position before the hearing,” spokeswoman Jessica Lamirande said Monday.
We also defended ourselves for having failed to collaborate in the proper functioning of the process. The Ministry has provided the lawyers with all the information of members of the Armed Forces who have resided at the base during the given period, and informs the administrator of any other information that it is “able to confirm”.