Veterans Affairs Minister Erin O’Toole is making a series of announcements aimed at repairing the government’s tattered relationship with veterans in advance of an election that will be held later this year.Chris Wattie/Reuters
A benefit proposed by the government to prevent disabled veterans from spending their retirement years in poverty could disadvantage those injured in older conflicts such as Korea and the Second World War by clawing back their lifetime payments for pain and suffering, veterans advocates say.
The disparity highlights the challenges faced by the Conservative government as it attempts to address gaps into the New Veterans Charter, a system of compensation that became law in 2006 and which modern-day veterans say leaves them without adequate financial resources or compensation for their suffering.
In this case, it is the older veterans who appear to be losing out.
Veterans Affairs Minister Erin O'Toole is making a series of announcements aimed at repairing the government's tattered relationship with veterans in advance of an election that will be held later this year. He will be in Halifax on Friday to unveil a proposal to help reservists who have been widely deployed on missions like Afghanistan but who receive significantly different benefits and supports from regular members of the Canadian Forces.
The Retirement Income Security Benefit he proposed on Monday was designed to help severely disabled veterans who are not eligible for a National Defence pension and who will lose an earnings-loss benefit when they hit 65, leaving them with little income. The proposal would guarantee that their total annual income is equal to at least 70 per cent of the benefits they were making from Veterans Canada before they turned 65.
The government will not deduct any portion of the lump-sum pain-and-suffering payments that are given to injured veterans who fall under the New Veterans Charter when calculating whether the 70-per-cent threshold has been reached.
But veterans advocates say the income calculation does appear to include the lifetime pain-and-suffering pensions that were replaced by the lump-sum payments when the Charter came into effect. Those are given to veterans injured prior to 2006, many of whom will face tough times at age 65 when they lose the long-term disability payments from an insurance plan funded by the Department of National Defence.
Michael Blais, the president of Canadian Veterans Advocacy, spoke with Mr. O'Toole on Thursday and asked the minister whether the pain-and-suffering pensions for older veterans would be deducted from the Retirement Income Security Benefit. It is a question that is also being asked by the Veterans Ombudsman and other veterans groups.
"He said, and I quote, 'we are not looking into that at this time,' " said Mr. Blais who said the minister's vague response left him puzzled and worried.
"I think it is very disingenuous that the government would treat one veteran with one standard where there is no clawback and then another veteran, equally wounded or disabled, to another one," said Mr. Blais.
The Veterans Affairs department did not respond to questions from The Globe and Mail about whether the pain-and-suffering benefits would be included in the income calculation.
The problem facing reservists, which is the subject of the Friday announcement, was highlighted last fall when the government scrambled to top up the benefits paid to the family of Corporal Nathan Cirillo, a reservist who was killed in a terrorist attack at the War Memorial in Ottawa. Initially, they were less than those provided to the family of Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent, a member of the regular force who was killed in Quebec in a similar fashion.
Brian Forbes, the chairman of the National Council of Veterans Associations in Canada, said the government has been saying for some time that it is prepared to equate reserve compensation with regular-force compensation. And, over the next while, "I think there's going to be five or six announcements" of improvements for veterans, said Mr. Forbes "I think clearly [Mr. O'Toole] now has some authority to move."
Mr. Forbes said he is worried that many of the government's proposals will go only halfway toward solving serious issues, but it is good to see some change. "I have described the department as being in a state of inertia for the last five years," he said, "because they haven't moved on recommendations that have been there for that long."