Letter to the Editor: What Happened in Suffield?

During the Second World War, the Canadian Forces Base at Suffield, Alberta, was Canada’s most important facility for the development of lethal and non-lethal aerosols to be dropped from aircraft. It was a very secret place. Frederick Banting, co-discoverer of insulin, worked there until he was killed in the crash of an aircraft returning to base. I knew a man, now deceased, who was seriously burned by mustard gas. I know a man, still living, who endured a fit of panic caused by a non-lethal crowd-control gas.

On the battlefront, Canadians never faced the deliberate use of poison gas, nor of the nerve gases such as sarin, which Hitler used to slaughter millions of Jews.

There was one incident in an Italian harbour; German dive bombers sank a Canadian ship carrying mustard gas. Canadians died from ingesting contaminated seawater.

There was no equivalent of Suffield in the United States. Canadians were the only guinea pigs. Civilians suffered as well. Carcinogens released from Suffield caused a high rate of cancer throughout a wide surrounding area. Later, the causative agent was identified as agriculture chemicals, which affect a much larger area.

William Wardill
Eatonia Oasis Living