Since forming a government in 2006, Harper and his Conservative have slashed $13.6 billion in program spending. Most Canadians have been hurt by these cuts, but I would argue none so much as our veterans. Aside from the closure of at least eight Veterans Affairs offices across the country, pensions have been clawed back and veteran suicide rates among service personnel and reservists have skyrocketed. Tragicially another one happened just this past week. From ’04-’14, according to the Dept. of Defense, more of our military died by suicide than were killed in Afghanistan. This is a heart-breaking statistic. We are told Veterans Affairs spending is up. What isn’t explained is that over $1billion in those budgets “lapsed” – meaning it was never spend and went back to the treasury to balance the budget. Conservatives are playing a shell game with people’s lives, persuade us that spending is up and that the budget is balanced. Meanwhile our service personnel suffer. Adding insult to very real injury, the recently announced $200million committment, initially reported to be payable over 6 years is actually forthcoming over 50 years. 50 years! So Mr. Chong’s Conservative party took over $1billion from the Veterans and will give back $200 million over 50 years?! I am not sure how anyone who says they vote Conservative could also claim they “support our troops” or look a veteran in the eye. The men and women in our Armed Forces deserve our respect, compassion and our generous support as they return, to rebuild and heal. War is messy and the clean-up doesn’t end when the sortie is over. The Conservatives should be ashamed of their deplorable treatment of our veterans and their families.
Diane Ballantyne