Cuts put vets, kin at risk, Dallaire says
‘War for the casualties is ongoing’
OTTAWA — Decorated Canadian general Sen. Romeo Dallaire says “ruthless” federal government cuts to Veterans Affairs and National Defence are putting mentally injured war veterans and their families at risk.
“We invested tens of millions of dollars for them to do the job overseas so we’d better be prepared to do what’s needed to take care of them and their families,” said Dallaire, Canada’s first public face of post-traumatic stress disorder. “Veterans Affairs should have been exempt and funded according to the increasing demand, but it didn’t get that pass.”
Early next year, Veterans Affairs will close nine regional offices and is cutting about 300 jobs and $226 million from its budget.
Dallaire, who was medically released from the armed forces in 2000 after being diagnosed with PTSD, said DND has been “chipping away” at programs created to care for casualties because its priorities are elsewhere.
“And when people tell me at Veterans Affairs that the programs won’t be affected because they’ve done studies, it’s nothing more than double talk and camouflage for the fact that they’re cutting.”
After a harrowing, well-documented assignment during the Rwandan genocide, Dallaire returned to Canada in 1994 and became assistant deputy minister for human resources at DND, where he was instrumental in building a system for ill and injured troops.
“There was absolutely nothing for my family or for me in 1994 when I came back,” he said, adding that two of his children eventually needed counselling related to his PTSD. “It took us damn near 15 years to be able say we have something capable of meeting requirements.”
That system includes an internal structure to care for physically and mentally injured serving troops, a series of Operational Stress Injury
And when people tell me at Veterans Affairs that the programs won’t be affected because they’ve done studies, it’s nothing more than double talk and camouflage for the fact that they’re cutting. SEN. ROMEO DALLAIRE
Clinics across the country to treat veterans with PTSD, and a virtual affiliation with Canadian researchers called the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research, a joint venture of the Royal Military College and Queen’s University.
“It all came about because of casualties among those coming back post-mission — suicides, family breakups and the catastrophic failure of people with PTSD turning into drugs addicts, boozing and being thrown in jail,” said Dallaire.
“It was a terrible apprenticeship and we now have an exemplary system, but this is a game of 100 per cent because every human being counts. The system has to meet requirements of all the people, not just the majority.”
The government is using the end of Canada’s fighting mission in Afghanistan as justification for chipping away at services for ill and injured troops at home, said Dallaire.
“Well the war for the casualties is ongoing, if it’s not getting worse,” he said. “At Veterans Affairs, where they once thought they were going out of business because the old vets were dying, they got surprised by the massive escalation of a new generation of veterans with complex and demanding injuries. They responded to it as best they could but then they got hit like everybody else. There’s no value crapping on the system. The political side lost its credibility.”
Veterans Affairs Canada, which operates on a $3.5-billion annual budget, did not respond to a Postmedia News request for comment.
Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Tom Lawson concedes that more work needs to be done, but says military leadership “is passionate about ensuring that our members who have sacrificed in service to their country receive quality care and support.”