Canada shafts soldiers
Wounded vets forced to fight bureaucracy for financial support and it’s ‘soul destroying’ for them
By MERCEDES STEPHENSON, QMI AGENCY
Last Updated: October 3, 2010 2:00am
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/mercedes_stephenson/2010/10/01/15551586.html
Last week, I had the privilege of holding Pte. Dawson Bayliss’ beautiful baby boy, Deacon. Tragically, Bayliss will never hold his own child. I held baby Deacon on the day of Bayliss’ funeral.
Bayliss died as a result of injuries sustained in Afghanistan, just days after seeing baby Deacon for the first time on an ultrasound screen.
Pte. Bayliss was injured when the massive turret on a LAV III unexpectedly swung around smashing into his head (the result of an Afghan truck clipping the LAV), destroying his bullet-proof helmet beyond recognition and fracturing his skull.
Ironically, it happened the day after the New Veterans Charter came into effect, a document that would do little to ever help Bayliss.
Bayliss returned home with post-traumatic stress disorder and post concussion syndrome, and was never the same again, something he and his family struggled to prove to the system that was supposed to help him.
Instead, a disturbing picture emerges of serious administrative errors, glacier-slow processing times and an insurance company-like mentality that questioned the extent and legitimacy of Bayliss’s injuries, even after he died from them.
Sean Bruyea, a veterans’ advocate, sums it up when he states that for soldiers forced to fight the bureaucracy of the country they once fought to defend, the humiliation is “soul destroying.”
Ultimately, the once-proud Pte. Bayliss, of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, burned his uniform in frustration.
Bayliss was a soldier who served Canada faithfully, but was treated with disregard and dishonour by the country he defended and, ultimately, gave his life for.
It is a refrain that is becoming all too familiar, brave young soldiers who are coming back to us broken, physically and psychologically, left feeling ashamed of their injuries, instead of honoured for their service.
Canadians have the power to reach out and change a system that is treating our veterans like second-class citizens. The Conservatives have made welcome announcements of additional funding, and new policies, but these are somewhat vague, and amount to tinkering on a system in need of a drastic overhaul.
All parties need to renew their commitment to Canada’s wounded soldiers, working together to redesign the system, immediately.
Looking at our allies, it is clear how low we’ve set the bar.
Canada will spend less than $4 billion this year on veterans while Australia, a country with a much smaller population and far fewer veterans, will more than triple our spending, at $12 billion.
It’s hardly out of our financial reach for Canadians to fund a multitude of social programs fulfilling the state’s responsibility to care for those wounded in its service.
The New Veterans Charter should be scrapped, or rewritten, to bring back the option of a pension.
No one ever got rich off their pension, but the financial security of a guaranteed monthly income (and a substantially more generous compensation) ensures that a soldier who is injured for life, is looked after for life.
Compensation should be determined solely by the severity of injuries, not designed to limit the financial liability of the people who sent the soldier to war in the first place.
And, no, spreading the current $276,000 lump-sum payment over several months, or years, won’t count as a return to the pension system.
Most importantly, Canada needs to deal with the culture and attitude veterans are faced with at Veterans Affairs Canada.
Frequently veterans leave the VAC feeling they are being perceived more like scheming insurance defrauders from a John Grisham novel, than heroes injured in the line of duty to this country.
A simple solution is to commit to hiring a substantial number of veterans to work in the department that serves them.
More than 30% of the employees at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs are veterans (90,000 vets). After all, who is better qualified for the job?
After the Second World War, Canada, with nowhere near today’s welfare state apparatus, offered a university education, land, or money to start a business to thousands of veterans.
Canada must expand the limited programs offered to today’s veterans, providing the equivalent of past opportunities investing in veterans.
It would be a small gesture of gratitude to those who invested their lives, and limbs, protecting us.
mercedes.stephenson@sunmedia.ca
