60 years on, veterans are still fighting for recognition over Agent Orange spraying at CFB Gagetown

This is a CBC Podcast. Hi there, it's Pia and every Wednesday we're bringing you a bonus podcast, one handpicked story from the week's round of the Sunday Magazine that we think is definitely worth hearing or hearing again.

Of course, you can hear all of our stories on the full podcast that we put out on Sunday and on the CBC Listen app. Alright, here's this week's highlight. This week marks 60 years since the American military first tested Agent Orange and other toxic herbicides at Canadian Forces Base Gagetown in your Brunswick.

Some Canadian veterans say the chemicals sprayed there have contributed to illnesses they have long suffered from, and many are still fighting for recognition from the Canadian government. At the same time, Gagetown has never been more important to Canada's military future. Earlier this year, Ottawa committed more than a billion dollars to modernize the base

as part of an historic effort to accelerate defence spending and prepare Canada for an uncertain geopolitical future. Our producer, Andrea Huang, recently visited CFB Gagetown to explore its complicated legacy and why some veterans feel the government is investing in the future without reckoning with the past.

Here is Andrea with our Sunday documentary, I'm His Voice. This building, when I first got here to be Gagetown, this is where I spent the next three plus years, right here in this building. I'm standing outside one of the barracks at Canadian Forces Base Gagetown. I'm with Gary Good, a 76-year-old veteran who served here from 1967 to 71.

I stayed right in that second room up there on the second floor. It had to be perfection. You made your bed, you had to be able to bounce a quarter on it. You had to see your face in your combat boots.

Located between St. John and Frederickton, the base is bigger geographically than both of those New Brunswick cities combined. But for Gary, the memories make it intimate. We step inside.

It's Gary's first time at the barracks in more than 50 years, but it still feels familiar. If you went down that way, you could down around the corner and then the showers are there. No such thing as a bathtub.

Hello! Gary chats up a young serviceman on his way back to his room. This is where I stayed for almost three years. Oh, I just got here about two days ago.

Oh, you're? How long did it hit? Uh, technically four years. Good for you.

You enjoy yourself and take care. Okay, you as well. Nice meeting you. Looking back, Gary remembers his years in the military

as some of his happiest. What's it like for you to be back here? I get shivers. I get shivers and...

Whoo! It's emotional. But these days, a dark shadow hangs over those happy memories. It was during his time on base that Gary believes

he was exposed to Agent Orange. It's one of several toxic herbicides best known for their use as defoliates during the Vietnam War. Here's how its use was described in a report from the UK broadcaster ITN from 1967. The ranch hands use three main types of defoliates,

Agent Orange, Agent Blue, and Agent White. We have a lot of areas where the enemy are hiding under this canopy of trees and our job is to defoliate so that the enemy is not able to hide. The Canadian government allowed U.S. military to test Agent Orange and other herbicides at

CFB Gagetown for seven days total in 1966 and 1967. Hundreds of Canadian veterans and civilian workers have since reported long-term, severe health issues they now believe came from exposure to the herbicides while on the base.

Gary is one of them. Gary I found out I had lung cancer in my right lung. It was 2005, Gary was 55. The doctors told him that because of the location of the tumor, they had to remove the lung.

At first, a potential connection to toxic herbicides didn't occur to Gary. I never paid much thought to it until there was a news article talking about Agent Orange had been sprayed at CFB Gagetown in Agent Purple. I said, wow.

Gary also smoked. It's a stupid thing to do and that may have contributed to my cancer as well. But I said, well, shame on them. The government knew, and they never said nothing.

They're senior officers, they're the base commanders. They never said anything to us about they were spraying Agent Orange and Agent Purple and Agent White and Agent Blue and Agent Pink. Generally cancers take a long time to develop, and there are multiple things that may

contribute to the development of a cancer. Sears is an environmental health scientist in Ottawa and chair of a national cancer prevention group called Prevent Cancer Now. Given that we know that these chemicals are quite carcinogenic and there are lags between when you're exposed to chemicals and when you develop cancers,

people can smoke for years and then finally they get a horrible lung cancer. So with the usual caveats that you never know 100% for sure that there was a single cause of cancer. There's probably more than one contributor. Being exposed to these chemicals and you know you were exposed certainly increases substantially the probability of getting cancer.

Remember him saying how the Agent Orange itself was a sticky substance. That's Jan McComb. Her late husband Jay Lumiere also spent several years stationed at CFB Gagetown. They would touch the trees. It was slippery. He described it as a yellow color, smelling like diesel. The guys in his platoon would, not knowing what it was, would joke and get their

lighters out and try and light it. When they took off their helmets and their balaclavas, He described how it felt on his skin. Jan and Jay met while they were both traveling in New Mexico. She was 45.

He was 56, his military years long behind him. He came up to me and asked me if he'd like me to take a photograph. I thanked him but said no thank you. I'm just taking pictures of the scenery.

And then we met again that day in the photographic shop. And then we met again that day on the maser. And then we met again that day in the coffee shop. And we met again the next day in the car park.

We just discovered we were both staying at the same place. It was meant to be.