Let me be frank here. Saying you “support the troops” is not the same as actually supporting the troops. Sorry, but wearing a red tie to work or putting a bumper sticker on your car is not “support”. You know what is supportive? Criticizing this ridiculous government for its treatment of veterans.
If anyone cares enough to look into the issue, there are countless ways that the Harper Government™ is treating the country’s veterans like garbage. Here are some examples.
Canada has a Veteran’s Charter, which was overhauled in 2011. You would think that overhauling something would, you know, make it better. But it didn’t. Under the new Charter, severely disabled veterans will have their benefits cut off at 65. For many severely disabled veterans, this all but ensures their living in poverty. The Veterans Ombudsman, Guy Parent, also says that the new lump-sum payments that replaced pensions in the new Charter are inadequate. And compensation for pain and suffering is somehow less than what Canadian courts award for personal injury. Figure that one out. If I lost a leg in a car accident, I would receive more compensation in court than a soldier who lost a leg from a land-mine in Afghanistan would receive from the government.
Plus there’s all of the cuts. Nine Veterans Affairs offices are to be closed by February, and 25% of Veterans Affairs workforce are planned to be cut by 2015. More services are being moved online, which makes perfect sense for the 90-year-old veterans that stormed Juno Beach. What this means is that veterans can call Service Canada and talk to employees who have no particular knowledge about veterans’ programs. Or they can travel as far as 1,100 kilometres to the nearest remaining Veteran Affairs office.
Now, the cuts are of course defended because of the decreasing number of WWII and Korean veterans. But there are still 680,000 veterans (plus current military) in Canada that did not serve in WWII. Many veterans need one-on-one service, not over-the-phone bureaucracy. And if so many veterans are against the closures and protesting against it, shouldn’t that tell us something?
Then there’s the government’s attempt to scale back military pensions. Then there’s the critic of the Veteran’s Charter who had his personal information leaked by Veteran’s Affairs. Then there’s the plan to honour Afghanistan veterans that was scrapped. Then there’s the veterans who are booted from the military just before pension eligibility. Then there’s the fact that only 28% of money budgeted for the Last Post Fund (funding for funerals of impoverished veterans) actually gets spent. This followed the revelation that the fund rejected 67% of requests that it received. (Fun fact: Canada provides funerals for convicts that can’t afford it, but veterans have to rely on this fund.) Then there’s the smear campaigns against veterans who dare to criticize the Conservative Party.
But perhaps the most egregious example of the Conservative Party’s neglect is its flat-out rejection of the Canadian government’s long-standing promise to care for wounded soldiers. This is a promise that Prime Minister Robert Borden made in 1917, just before the Battle of Vimy Ridge. He stated:
You can go into this action feeling assured of this, and as the head of the government I give you this assurance: That you need not fear that the government and the country will fail to show just appreciation of your service to the country and Empire in what you are about to do and what you have already done.
The government and the country will consider it their first duty to see that a proper appreciation of your effort and of your courage is brought to the notice of people at home that no man, whether he goes back or whether he remains in Flanders, will have cause to reproach the government for having broken faith with the men who won and the men who died.
But Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party argue that this no longer applies. The government, in other words, is no longer bound to care for soldiers wounded in combat.
The Conservatives are so cemented in this morally bankrupt position that they tried to have a class-action lawsuit from veterans of the war in Afghanistan thrown out of court. This lawsuit claims that the government has a duty to care for veterans. When throwing out the lawsuit failed, the government instead launched an appeal. They argue that this promise to care for veterans should not bound the current government.
I’m sorry, but if the government sends you to war, they cannot then decide to abandon you. There is a moral and social obligation. And whether or not the Conservatives are legally right is not at all the point. The point is that they don’t much care for treating veterans with dignity and respect.
It just doesn’t make sense. For a government that wasted so much money trying to commemorate the War of 1812, why does it dismiss the actual people involved in war? Why try to make Canadians care about a two-hundred-year-old war while not caring about Canadians in war? I know that this Conservative government has its priorities mixed up, but that’s taking it to a whole new level.
I am the furthest thing from a war supporter. But if your government put you into combat, that same government has a moral duty to take care of you when your body or mind gets injured. Unfortunately, 400 Canadian veterans die in poverty every year. Our government loves photo-ops and cheap talk. But the way it actually treats veterans in this country is an absolute travesty. Something a lot of “supporters” fail to admit.
in good conscience 