OTTAWA, ON, March 11, 1997 - The long-standing issue of compensation for slave labour by Canadians who were prisoners of war of the Japanese finally came before a parliamentary committee on Foreign Affairs in Ottawa this morning.

The War Amps had made a presentation back in November. Today it was the turn of the government bureaucrats to provide answers.

It was the opinion of Cliff Chadderton, CEO of The War Amps, the organization that has spearheaded this Claim, that Committee Chairman Bill Graham and the Members of Parliament were far from satisfied with the answers, or lack of them, forthcoming from the representatives of the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Justice and Foreign Affairs.

It was expected that the Veterans Affairs official would provide some insight into the question of whether there was any validity to the Claim. Instead, he presented a paper which could only be described as defensive, talking about the pensions, which are the same for veterans who served in other theatres of war.

He attempted to cloud the issue by quoting figures presently paid to disabled veterans under the Pension Act, but Members of Parliament appeared to reject this, stating that the job of the Committee was not to examine the Pension Act, but to look into the matter of compensation due from the Japanese over and above the war disability pensions.

The representative from the Department of Justice chose to provide information on the special prisoners of war allowance paid under the existing Pension Act, suggesting this was for slave labour conditions. This view has never been accepted by veterans' organizations or the government and the recommendation of the Woods Committee, which studied the Pension Act from 1965-1968, was that this special allowance should be paid for undetermined disabilities.

The representative from Foreign Affairs attempted to suggest that the 1952 Peace Treaty with Japan provided that no further compensation was due to these prisoners from the Japanese government. The Members of Parliament asked a number of questions which none of the bureaucrats could satisfactorily answer.

For example, the Committee wanted to know about the history of the Geneva Convention, which incidentally had been covered in a brief presented by Cliff Chadderton under date of November 13, 1996. The government officials were unable to provide any clarification of this.

One Member of Parliament suggested that the government of Canada was in error in signing the 1952 Peace Treaty if it did not know what funds would be available to settle the compensation Claim. Other Members of Parliament indicated dissatisfaction in that the government officials seemed to take a negative stand whereas the expectation was that they would answer any of outstanding questions concerning such claims, such as whether Canada had the right to sign the Peace Treaty, and secondly, whether Canada should have protected the interests of its veterans in the many years since, in that international law makes it mandatory that the Canadian government should ensure that its citizens are entitled to any benefits provided for them by laws governing the nations of the world, such as the Geneva Convention.