The Ottawa Citizen, 11 febbraio
Forces failing soldiers: report
Protection needed from 'environmental health hazards'
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/national/010211/5039458.html
Mike Blanchfield

 The Canadian Forces have repeatedly failed to make rules that would ensure peacekeepers are protected from environmental health threats while on missions abroad, an independent investigator told the chief of defence staff last year.

 "The CF today recognizes the importance of environmental health hazards," concludes a Jan. 25, 2000, report by the Thomas Review Group, an independent consultant. "The CF has not, however, been able to generate any policy to address environmental health concerns for the past three years. ...

 "It is imperative, given Canada's continuing large-scale commitments to complex and intense overseas missions, that these policies be developed."

 The report, by former RCMP assistant commissioner Lowell Thomas, was commissioned in 1999 by Gen. Maurice Baril, chief of the defence staff, as part of the military's investigation into the Croatian toxic soil controversy. The affair, which focused attention on tampering with peacekeepers' medical files, also raised questions about whether soldiers are increasingly exposed to environmental toxins.

 The Thomas report was recently released under Access to Information Act. Its publication comes at a time when environmental issues are in the spotlight for both the Canadian military and its NATO allies.

 NATO countries are trying to come to terms with a scare that flared in Europe last month over whether the health of peacekeepers has been harmed by exposure to radioactive depleted uranium. Some 40,000 depleted uranium rounds were fired in the Kosovo and Bosnia conflicts of the 1990s.

 The radioactive substance is used in the tips of anti-tank missiles and concerns have been raised by some European countries that soldiers may be developing cancer as a result of exposure.

 Though no scientific link has been made between depleted uranium exposure and cancer, NATO countries are examining the issue closely. The Canadian Forces are about to begin an ambitious analysis with Statistics Canada, which the military predicts will debunk any fears that Canadian soldiers may have been adversely affected.

 The Croatia toxic soil controversy raised the profile of Canadian military health concerns two years ago when a mini-scandal erupted over whether peacekeepers sent to the Balkan country between 1993 and '95 were exposed to hazardous PCBs, heavy metals and other pollutants.

 Controversy arose over whether the files of thousands of peacekeepers were tampered with in an attempt to cover up that possibility.

 The mini-scandal resulted in three separate military investigations, including the Thomas report. Another report concluded too many peacekeepers were coming home sick, that the government didn't do enough to help them, but that no one particular environmental problem could be blamed.

 Mr. Thomas's report is scathing, especially the attention he draws to the lack of a military environmental policy as of one year ago. Defence Minister Art Eggleton has said in the past that the military now scouts out for environmental hazards the areas in which it will deploy troops.

 Mr. Thomas says the military's bungling of the Croatia situation undermined the confidence of the troops. The military did not initiate the investigations until media reports focusing on the mysterious ailments that befell some Croatia veterans forced it to do so. "The confidence of CF personnel in their own system to protect and promote their welfare has been shaken, and several former members felt that the media was the only way to bring the matter to light," the report concludes.

 However, Mr. Thomas does not entirely blame the Forces for the mishandling of the situation. He singles out a common cause for many of the military's woes in recent years -- the '90s decade of federal budget and personnel cuts that coincided with a burst in peacekeeping activity around the globe.

 "The investigation found that when the number and size of operations overseas increased, there was not a proportional increase in the resources and operational staff at National Defence headquarters. As a result, only the most serious concerns could be appropriately addressed."