Ex-soldiers warn Tories of ballot-box backlash
Closing of eight veterans’ offices seen as betrayal
OTTAWA — Veterans Affairs Minister Julian Fantino appeared to add insult to injury late Tuesday in rejecting the pleas of ex-soldiers to halt the impending closure of eight of the department’s regional offices.
A scheduled meeting with a delegation of veterans, at least one from the Second World War, was cancelled abruptly and the group met with senior Conservatives, including MP Laurie Hawn and the minister’s chief of staff.
Just before veterans were set to hold an evening news conference, Fantino appeared in a basement office on Parliament Hill to reinforce the message that the centres would close on schedule.
“The decision has been made,” Fantino said. “We have found alternate accommodations that we feel will adequately address veterans and their needs.”
Centres in Kelowna, B.C., Saskatoon, Brandon, Man., Thunder Bay, Ont., Windsor, Ont., Sydney, N.S., Charlottetown and Corner Brook, N.L. are slated to close Friday as part of a move to more online and remote services. A ninth office already has closed in Prince George, B.C.
One veteran, Ron Clarke, said the minister’s treatment has served to alienate him from a core Conservative constituency, and he urged ex-soldiers to take out their frustration at the ballot box in 2015.
“I would like to call for Mr. Fantino’s resignation — or firing,” Clarke said. “Mr. (Stephen) Harper and his Conservatives had best be prepared for the next election. There are two (other) parties who said they’d open our offices, and (soldiers) might want to think about voting for them, but not the Conservatives.”
Seven veterans, including Roy Lamore whose service dates back to the 1940s, says he and others feel betrayed by a government that promised to take care of them and younger soldiers.
“These closures will put veterans at risk,” Lamore, of Thunder Bay, told a Parliament Hill news conference. “I hope the government is listening. Why do we, as veterans, have to beg?”
Earlier in the day during question period in the House of Commons, Prime Minister Harper brushed aside the criticism and noted that veterans can get everything they need from the less specialized 584 Service Canada offices coast to coast.
With the declining veterans population, Harper suggested, the Second World War-era structure had outlived its purpose.
“There are a small number of service centres that are being closed that frankly service very few people, had very few visits,” Harper told the House of Commons.
“That’s being replaced with 600 service centres across the country and, in an increased number of cases, employees will actually go and meet veterans instead of the other way around.”
Harper pointed to increased investments the Conservatives have made under the New Veterans Charter.
NDP Leader Tom Mulcair linked the imminent cuts to the increasing number of soldiers and ex-soldiers who’ve taken their lives since the fall.
“When our forces are facing a crisis of eight military suicides in two months, there has never been a more important time to maintain those services,” Mulcair said.
Bruce Moncur, a former corporal who was wounded in Afghanistan in 2006, says the online system has increased frustration even among his Internet-savvy friends seeking benefits and treatment.
Filling out forms and navigating the department’s bureaucratic maze has taken him up to a week, he said, when just one office visit would have sorted it out.