What do Jeopardy host Alex Trebek, Canadian Geographic Magazine, and a WW2 weapons lab have in common? The secret is at 50 Sussex Drive in Canada’s capital of Ottawa. Robert McClellan and I share the story in our first installment of “My Canada.”
If you are wondering about the details of the chemical weapons production, here are a few more interesting points.
From 1940-47, the Rideau Falls Chemical Weapons Lab produced flame thrower fuel and B1 dye used to detect mustard gas in addition to a number of other “classified chemical compounds.” By the end of the war, the lab produced 8 million gas masks and 40 million canisters. After 1947, the lab moved to Shirley’s Bay.
After WWII, stockpiled chemical and biological weapons were dumped into the Atlantic Ocean, where these nightmarish compounds decay on the ocean floor.
Regarding human test subjects, paid volunteers were subjected to testing of chemical agents, with experimental countermeasures being tested for their success. Volunteers suffered blisters and respiratory ailments as a result. In 2004, the Ministers of National Defence and Veterans Affairs launched a payment program to compensate these and other Canadian veterans.
