Don’t forget today’s veterans

April 9, 2017, will mark 100 years since the Canadian Army Corps, at great sacrifice, in that many thousands of its soldiers were killed and wounded, was remarkably victorious in the notorious Battle of Vimy Ridge.

Our current government is now in the throes of expending considerable money, time, effort and resources to commemorate the deeds — and the deaths — of the valorous men of Vimy, who, while long since departed, still unquestionably deserve to be respected and remembered for their service.

However, what of those other troops, now venerable veterans, who succeeded them in the Second World War and Korea, who are still living out the remainder of their decrepit days, in what was once a fine federal facility, under the jurisdiction of Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC), but is now being transformed into a provincial parking garage for geriatrics? I refer, pointedly, to Ste. Anne’s Hospital, in Ste. Anne de Bellevue, Que.

I feel both qualified and justified, from my vantage point as a “permanent” patient, to cite the egregious example of Ste. Anne’s, where the government’s once-iconic “Sacred Obligation” has become callously sacrificed upon the altar of cost-cutting, insensitive indifference to its patients, and even been officially denied by federal attorneys as representing any legal commitment on the part of the country.

In essence, while ours was still a VAC hospital, we received excellent care on all counts, but no sooner were we transferred, one year ago, to the control of the Province of Quebec, did the level of care begin to degrade and deteriorate, belying all of Ottawa’s proclaimed promises to the contrary.

Nor is it only our own remote backwater of vestigial veterans who are thus afflicted. I have the privilege of knowing and communicating with numerous “young” vets, all across Canada, who served as peacekeeper" and in Afghanistan, and their degree of dissatisfaction, distrust and frustration with the negative and neglectful antics of Veterans Affairs Canada, is on a par and often even greater than that of my comrades at Ste. Anne’s.

Where we more venerable veterans bristle at having been boondoggled and buffaloed by Veterans Affairs Canada, the upcoming generation of vets feels betrayed, particularly by the implementation of the “New Veterans Charter,” which effectively replaced the previous Pension Act, for all but Second World War and Korean War Veterans.

Yesterday’s dead doubtless deserve all the tributes and attention proffered to them by a grateful nation — but what about today’s living counterparts? Don’t they merit an equivalent measure of respect and attention to their ongoing needs, before a massive monument is mounted, postmortem, in recognition of their contribution to their country?

We (still) living, breathing veterans fought and bled, just as did our ill-fated forefathers at Vimy, but we do not seek bunting and bands as a national afterthought. What we want and need is our rightful level of “care, compassion and respect.”

And so, as to what the Battle of Vimy Ridge should mean for Canada, it did, indeed, previously give meaning to the concept of honouring our country’s collective debt to its military protectors, over many decades, for having done their sworn duty, in extremis.

The rough reality, however, is that the current consequences of that crucible of hellfire have, for all practical and pragmatic purposes, lost all meaning for Canada, to judge by our country’s disgraceful disregard for providing the proper care, deference and dignity, which it owes to its own, who were once the (undying) guardians of its very existence as a free nation.

At the Vimy ceremonies, when our Parliamentary powers-that-be stand before the memorial monument (and the cameras, of course), as they traditionally bow their heads, it should be not only in silent tribute to the dead of one longago battle, but also in shame and contrition for their scandalous treatment of the living, who are still battling daily with their own government for what is their true due. to directly replace that lost EU funding for academia.

Moreover, Brexit will present many global opportunities to British universities, as well as challenges. Hence, while I daresay that all these British academics have good personal reasons for wanting to move to Canada, I find it somewhat surprising that your newspaper is unquestioningly swallowing the British “Remoaner” narrative that all ills befalling Britain are a result of Brexit.