Court ready to extend deadline to apply for tainted water compensation | 24CA News
Current and former troopers and their households who drank contaminated water from CFB Valcartier could get extra time to use for compensation.
A choose stated Wednesday he’s ready to grant a short extension to Sunday’s deadline for claimants taking half in a class-action lawsuit. They could obtain much more time if the choose sides with the class-action attorneys, who’re asking for a deadline extension of six months.
The choose stated he would possibly grant the non permanent extension to guard claimants’ rights whereas he deliberates on the class-action attorneys’ request for a for much longer extension.
“I don’t pretend to tell you that I’m capable of rendering a decision in the next few minutes,” Justice Bernard Godbout informed attorneys in French.
“If I cannot render the judgment before Friday, there will be a safeguard order to preserve the rights during the deliberation.”
After Wednesday’s court docket listening to, class motion attorneys concerned within the case stated they’re nonetheless ready to obtain the choose’s order.They stated they count on claimants will obtain a two-week extension — a provision already constructed into the class-action protocol.
For a long time, a cancer-causing industrial degreasing agent referred to as trichloroethylene, or TCE, was used at Valcartier’s analysis facility and a close-by ammunition manufacturing facility. It leached into the water desk. The Quebec Court of Appeal concluded the chemical was used over an “indeterminate period” from the Fifties to the Nineties.
In 2020, the Quebec Court of Appeal awarded hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in compensation to some residents of Shannon, Que., a city near CFB Valcartier. Only army members and their households dwelling in married quarters in the neighborhood throughout that point are eligible.
Those eligible had till Sunday to submit a compensation declare by way of a web-based portal.
Former army member Ed Sweeney and federal Conservative, NDP and Green MPs have been calling on the federal authorities to conform to a six-month deadline extension.
WATCH | Veteran says his household was uncovered to tainted water on a army base:
A Canadian veteran is looking on the Department of National Defence to make extra of an effort to contact individuals entitled to compensation after ingesting tainted water on a Quebec army base.
During Wednesday’s listening to, the lawyer for the Government of Canada, Michelle Kellam, opposed the extension, arguing there was adequate publicity of the case and claimants have had sufficient time to use.
But class-action lawyer Simon Pelletier argued that 1000’s of potential claimants are solely now studying they’re eligible for 1000’s of {dollars} in compensation. Pelletier additionally stated he and his crew are keen to bear any additional administrative prices to make sure these affected obtain justice.
In December 2000, checks by an area public well being authority discovered TCE in lots of wells in Shannon. Residents had been informed to cease ingesting the water. An environmental group has mapped a number of places the place the chemical was discovered.
The attraction court docket concluded the Canadian authorities violated space residents’ proper to safety below the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
“The accumulation of red flags … the knowing pursuit of an unacceptable polluting practice over a long period and the indifference of the responsible authorities to the consequences of such a practice on the population concerned leads to the conclusion that there was an unlawful and intentional interference with the right to security of the person,” reads an English abstract of the Quebec Court of Appeal resolution.
