”Armoured Proof” – Me Charles Veilleux

Lawyer Charles Veilleux is certain to hold some very solid evidence in the class-action lawsuit launched by Shannon residents, but residents will have to contribute to make it compelling.
An information meeting was held last April 25 at the Shannon Community Centre. Lawyer Charles Veilleux addressed the 300 participants and asked all residents to come forward with as much information as possible in order for him to build up the case.
First, each member of the class-action lawsuit must fill out some forms available on the Regroupement Web site, at http://shannoninfotce.tripod.com. The heir of a deceased person living or having lived in Shannon may also fill out a form for the deceased.
The first file aims at ascertaining the current residence of the resident, all previous addresses and their medical history. “I expect you all to actively participate in preparing the file, by writing down all the details of whatever physical or emotional health problems you had to live through, as well as material losses,” indicates Mr. Veilleux.
The second form actually authorizes access to the medical file of a resident, whether alive or deceased. “We wish to find a person who has died, who never worked on the Military Base, who never smoked or drank alcohol and who never sustained double TCE exposure in order to analyze their cancerous tissue blocks and obtain irrefutable proof of genetic mutation brought on by TCE”, mentions Me Veilleux.
These forms must be sent to Me Veilleux’s office, along with various documents (see Web site). The lawyer has already received between 800 and 900 of these forms, all carefully filled out.
Further, Me Veilleux has asked residents to “identify exactly where they saw or heard there was contamination and toxic waste spills on the territory.” “The more the accounts will lead in the same direction, the more compelling our proof will be. The residents are masters of the facts,” he points out.
In the coming months, the lawyer will look to obtain survey reports in order to validate the information he will have amassed. On Friday, April 27, he was doing a presentation to get help from the Class-Action Lawsuit Help Fund in order to pay these experts.
“We are not taking the accused to court for using TCE, but for having shown negligence by disposing of it in the environment and for not having set up administrative procedures to manage TCE. We will also ask them to answer to the fact that they never alerted the population when they realised there was TCE in the water table, and for not having taken all possible precautions to prevent migration,” says Mr. Veilleux.