By Michael Blais
Veterans are not alone in having good reason to be dismayed with respect to Veterans Affairs Canada’s performance when one considers the trifecta of adverse headlines which this department has garnered over the past month. Hopefully, Prime Minister Trudeau will share our concerns as it was promises he made to veterans in exchange for their votes during the past two election’s which have been broken and/or marginalized.
Serving members, veterans and their families will recall an infamous exchange between an ex soldier and Trudeau during a town hall meeting in Edmonton, February, 2018. Afghanistan War veteran Brock Blaszczyk had issued a challenge to Mr. Trudeau regarding the Liberals much heralded Pension for Life and the Equitas lawsuit.
“I was prepared to be killed in action. What I wasn’t prepared for, Mr. Prime Minister, is Canada turning its back on me” Said Blaszczyk. Trudeau replied “Certain groups are asking for more than we can afford, right now.”
Afford? Veterans Affairs Canada, under a Liberal mandate, has to date returned hundreds of millions of parliamentary approved dollars unspent, sending close to 350 million dollars back to treasury. This practice is ongoing with the latest report citing 105 million returned by VAC the very same year in which Trudeau claimed veterans “were asking for more.” Despite unanimous support for a parliamentary vote in 2019 to ensure budgeted funds delegated to veterans care which remain unspent at the end of the fiscal year would be carried forward until services have been restored.
Could this money not have fulfilled Trudeau’s promise to acknowledge Blaszczyk’s national sacrifice by re-establishing the Sacred Obligation pension as the Prime Minister promised?
Trudeau’s promise on backlogs have been abrogated by the reality of recent media headlines.
“Backlog of applications for veteran’s benefits grows by the thousands,” proclaimed The Canadian Press.
Delays in adjudication and services persist unabated. Despite the Liberals infusion of over 5 billion dollars, the rehiring of hundreds of front line positions which had been deemed redundant by the conservatives, the backlog status has somehow grown worse? Pas possible!
Forty-four thousand applications are currently in motion, while approximately twenty-three thousand have been processed yet are stagnant, waiting for adjudication. Most of these claims are combat arms related, which is important in the sense of debunking the long standing Liberal promise to expedite combat arms decisions on claims relating to hearing impairment, tinnitus, traumatized feet, ankles, knees, backs, necks and shoulders, maladies which are all too common to the life of former infantrymen, tankers, sappers and gunners.
Damaging headline number three for VAC would be in Nova Scotia’s ongoing provincial inquiry into the horrific deaths of Cpl Lionel Desmond and his family. This coroners inquiry has raised critical questions which strike to the very heart of VAC’s credibility with respect to the department’s ability to effectively provide expedient mental health services to veterans in the wake of the Afghanistan War.
Justice Warren Zimmer’s extraordinary decision on the 11th day of the proceedings, to read Cpl Desmond’s military medical files into the court record when confirmed that VAC did not share this vital information when they contracted Catherine Chambers the community based psychologist to treat Cpl Desmond after a four mouth absence of care. The Zimmer felt it important to detail the degree of negligence demonstrated by VAC when they failed to share Cpl Desmond’s medical records with Chambers.
She testified she was unaware hospital doctors recommended on-going therapy, inclusive of brain scans, neuro-cognitive testing and potential monitoring for Post-Concussion Syndrome. She was unaware Cpl Desmond suffered from PTSD, major depression and anxiety, poor cognitive abilities and paranoia concerning the motives of health care professionals. Dr. Chambers wept as she informed the judge that knowing now what VAC had failed to disclose to her that December, she did not believe Cpl Desmond would have been a candidate for “community based psychotherapy but would have required further inpatient care.”
Veterans are not falling through the cracks. Veterans are being abandoned and in respect to Cpl Desmond and his family, abandoned into a catastrophic dimension.
Will Trudeau hold anyone at VAC to account? I doubt it.
