The Sunday Magazine23:3060 years on, veterans are still fighting for recognition over Agent Orange spraying at CFB Gagetown
Gary Goode remembers digging foxholes and crawling through thick brush nearly 60 years ago at Canadian Forces Base Gagetown. The landscape in his mind remains vivid: dead leaves hanging on trees, a chemical smell overhead, like diesel.
The former infantry soldier sometimes spent weeks in those pits.
“Every time I went out into the field you could smell it,” he said.
What Goode didn’t know then was that the U.S. military had tested Agent Orange and other toxic herbicides on the base earlier that year, with permission from Ottawa. This week marks the 60th anniversary since that testing, something for which veterans who believe they were exposed to chemicals are still seeking disability benefits or other long-term compensation.
Some of those veterans, military family members and some U.S. lawmakers are also raising concerns these herbicides could linger in the soil, calling for more testing as Canada redevelops the base.
This year, Ottawa announced more than a billion dollars to modernize CFB Gagetown, part of its promise to boost defence spending — after the U.S. administration accused NATO allies of freeloading and that they should not count on America’s military support unless they beef up their own investments.
Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a $9.3-billion increase to 2025-26 defence spending, on top of the existing budget of just under $40 billion — some of which is earmarked for new military housing, including between 500 and 650 new units at CFB Gagetown over several years.
But Goode said he worries “these builds are going to be on toxic soil,” a concern shared by fellow veterans in the advocacy group Brats in the Battlefield.
“Are they going to do the proper tests?” Goode asked in a recent interview. “And are they going to remediate what they find and make it safe to build?”
A Department of National Defence (DND) spokesperson did not directly answer questions about remediation when CBC asked via email.
Prime Minister Mark Carney pledged more than $1 billion for 5th Canadian Division Support Base Gagetown training facilities, troop housing and a new air defense system.
A 2005-2007 federal investigation into Agent Orange and the larger issue of spraying herbicides at CFB Gagetown concluded that “only those individuals directly involved with the application of the herbicides or clearing of treated brush soon after” would have suffered potential long-term health risks.
Its findings, however, remain controversial among veterans, their families and, most recently, in the Maine senate, which has gathered information from U.S. military members who claim to have been affected by exposure in New Brunswick.
What is Agent Orange?
The chemical herbicide was used in the Vietnam War to kill off jungle foliage in order to strip the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese of strategic hiding places and food.
Its name came from the orange stripe on the barrels used to store the colourless cocktail of two herbicides — 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T, the latter of which contains dioxin, a chemical linked to birth defects, cancers and other illnesses.
Goode developed lung cancer at 55.
He smoked, but when he saw a news report in 2007 about a government compensation package for those exposed to Agent Orange in the 1966 and 1967 testing days he wondered if there might be a connection.
“I worked there, I was trained there, I spent three and a half years there,” he said.
The one-time, tax-free payment of $20,000 came with a caveat: it was voluntary and not an admission of wrongdoing or legal responsibility on the federal government’s part.
Goode was among the 5,000 approved. He argues, however, that his lung cancer is a service-related injury, entitling him to ongoing disability benefits, but his claims have been repeatedly denied by Veterans Affairs Canada because of his smoking.
Maine wants more testing
Since 1971, Maine National Guard members have undergone training at CFB Gagetown — and many have tried unsuccessfully to claim disability benefits, claiming their illnesses are a result of exposure to herbicides sprayed at the base.
The U.S. government denied those submissions largely because of the 2005-2007 Canadian investigation’s conclusions.
But former president of Maine’s state senate Troy Jackson grew up hearing veterans’ stories, and he said they raised questions.
In 2023, he launched a state commission to re-examine the report, which found the “study that they did was flawed,” the former state senate president said, referring to the Canadian investigation.
In April, Maine’s governor signed into law the recommendations from that commission, which include looking at whether new studies should be conducted at CFB Gagetown, something Jackson said the state would pay for if recommended.
“The evidence [the commission] gathered and the testimony it received made it more than clear that Maine and Canadian servicemen stationed at the base were exposed to levels of carcinogenic chemicals that were not only harmful, but in too many cases ultimately deadly,” Jackson said in his testimony during the public hearing for the bill.
He said he hopes renewed testing would ensure veterans receive appropriate compensation, but he also wants to make sure current military members are not harmed by any potential remaining contaminants.
When asked about the Maine commission’s recommendations, DND told CBC in a statement it was “not aware of additional environmental analysis or study underway” because of the commission and that its “co-operation and support will be evaluated if/when a request is made.”
Previous study on these types of chemicals — and their use in Vietnam — supports the case for more testing at CFB Gagetown, said Wayne Dwernychuk, who spent more than a decade as chief scientist for Hatfield Consultants, an independent environmental consulting firm. There, he led research from 1994 to 2006 on how dioxins used in Vietnam affected humans and the environment.
“It can last in soil for over 100 years without breaking down,” he said in an interview. “Certainly additional soil studies could be done [at CFB Gagetown] just to see, in fact, whether there is a carryover from all those years to present time.”
He notes, however, that though these chemicals can remain in the soil for a century, they also may have broken down over the past six decades.
Military families
Eileen Beauchamp and her family moved to military housing on base when she was five in 1962. Like many other young families, she said hers spent lots of time outdoors, especially in the woods, during their seven years on base.
“I loved Gagetown, actually,” she said. “I loved going fishing with my dad and I loved going to pick the blueberries and the picnics.”
But after she left the base, she said she was diagnosed with illnesses related to the endocrine system, including autoimmune diseases. As an adult, she was diagnosed with three types of cancer: melanoma, breast cancer and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Chemical exposure is a recognized risk factor in developing the latter type of cancer.
Though she believes her illnesses are linked to her time playing in the sprayed fields in Gagetown, she did not qualify for the compensation, because she was first diagnosed with cancer in 2017 — after the 2011 deadline.
And as military housing gets built over the next few years, she said she feels it’s important to test for potential lingering contaminants and remediate if they are found.
“Military life is not only the soldier … military life includes the spouse, includes the children,” she said. “We’re the ones who are left behind. We’re the ones who can be affected by what happens on a base.”
For Goode, the recent military investments feel empty.
“They think about us a lot when the cameras are on and the microphones are there — or on Remembrance Day,” he said. “But we’re more than just a photo prop.”
