The Atomic Workers Recognition Program (AWRP) is a farce, just like the Trudeau Government. Everything the Liberals touch turns to disappointment.
The AWRP was intentionally underfunded from day one. It was announced as a two-year, $22.3 million program, promising a one-time ex-gratia payment of $28,500. The atomic workers list of people who helped with the clean-up has about 1,500 names on it. If you do the math the money intentionally runs out just short of 800 workers or their eligible survivors. It is clear the plan of the current Federal Government never was to make the payments to all the workers and their families.
During the Harper Conservative Government, approximately 200 former Canadian military personnel who participated in the clean-up and decontamination activities in Chalk River following two major nuclear reactor accidents in 1952 and 1958. Their duties, which included the mopping and scrubbing of contaminated buildings, qualified them to receive a one-time ex-gratia payment in recognition of their efforts.
My Office has been flooded by upset families of Atomic workers. They have received their rejection letters, with certificates instead of cheques. The Liberals sent these certificates to hang on their walls with their deceased parents’ names on it. The families are told, for variety of reasons, they do not qualify for the $28,500 one-time ex-gratia payment.
In the 1950s, Ontario’s Chalk River Laboratories was one of the top global sites for leading-edge atomic science. In 1952 and 1958, there were incidents that required AECL and Department of National Defence (DND) personnel to contain and clean up contaminated sites. The Atomic Workers Recognition Program provides a one-time ex gratia payment of $28,500 each to the former AECL employees, survivors, or succession, who were required to contain and clean up contaminated reactors following incidents at Chalk River Laboratories in 1952 and 1958. The deadline to apply is March 31, 2023.