Show some compassion, Mr. Trudeau
Here we are, almost midway between June 6, the anniversary of the invasion of Normandy during the Second World War and July 1, Canada Day, and the anniversary of the First World War battles of Somme and Beaumont-Hamel. It is, if you will, the season to honour and pay tribute to our veterans. Only Nov. 11 itself offers a more concentrated moment of recall and respect.
How strange it is, then, that our new, open, caring and sensitive to a fault prime minister, a prime minister who sees himself and the government he leads as the very embodiment of Canadian values, can act so callously toward 94- year- old Petter Blindheim, a hero of the Allied cause, by refusing him ready and available hospital care in his last days on this planet.
Blindheim’s case is now well known. His genuine heroism is utterly unquestioned. While under active torpedo attack as his ship was going down, he defused the primer on a depth charge, an act of incomparable courage that saved the lives of many of his crewman. He has six medals of honour and has been living in Canada since 1945. It is a great honour to the whole country that he chose to make Canada his home.
And yet, he and his family have, over the past year, been put through the most excruciating bureaucratic dance (he wasn’t technically an Allied veteran, the government argued for awhile, then he was; now he has to meet a number of “special” conditions), while beds, a full 13 of them, at the Camp Hill facility in Nova Scotia, wait empty.
“His life at this time is sleeping in bed and being wheeled in a wheelchair by my mother, who has chronic health conditions, to a chair in the living room where he spends his day. You tell me how this is good care,” said his son.
Belabouring the bureaucrats, however, is misdirected. However fastidiously they con the “rules” to make sure a veteran does not get c are, whatever i ngenuity is spent making sure he doesn’t exactly fit some predefined “spot” in whatever l abyrinth of regulations Veterans Affairs has constructed, the real masters of this situation are not the bureaucrats.
The real masters are the minister of veterans affairs and t he prime minister. With a raised eyebrow from either of them, all Blindheim’s difficulties would vanish.
A wave of the prime ministerial hand and he would have an honour guard and a military band to salute him as he is ushered into Camp Hill for the care he needs and deserves.
Look who is already supporting him. Veterans have demonstrated on his behalf. Peter Stoffer, an ornament of the House of Commons when he was an MP and a fiercely dedicated supporter of Canadian veterans, is visibly and even angrily backing Blindheim’s family and his cause.
Even the Liberal premier of Nova Scotia, Stephen McNeil, who governs a province that voted decidedly Liberal in the last national election, broke ranks with his f ederal counterparts to chastise Ottawa over its handling of this file.
“I’m tr ying to find an appropriate word t hat I can tell you on the news, but there has been more bureaucratic B. S. associated with this issue and the national government needs to do the right thing and treat this vet with the dignity he deserves,” said McNeil. “(Blindheim) was good enough to stand beside our ancestors and defend this country. What he’s l ooking for is an opportunity to die in the same company of those men that he fought alongside to defend this country and the national government should provide him with that opportunity.”
And I would wager that every Liberal in the federal caucus, i f asked directly about his or her opinion on whether Blindheim should — let me be blunt — get a bed in which he may be cared for while he waits to die, would not have the nerve to say no and, more to the point, would not wish to say no. Does the new, caring Canada not have the resources to care for a 94- year- old combat veteran?
I do not, as a rule, like “if ” arguments. But I make an exception here. If former prime minister Stephen Harper were still in power, Justin Trudeau would be ripping his head off in the Commons and probably seeking a speaking slot at the United Nations to tell the world how shabbily the Harper regime treats i ts veterans. And every Liberal MP would be dropping rhetorical depth charges on the Conservative minister of veterans affairs.
The truth is that remedying Blindheim’s situat i on would be easy and would come at little cost to t he government. Trudeau should grant this old and honourable soldier the peace of a dignified and cared- f or departure. He should demonstrate a little of t hose “Canadian values of caring and respect” that decorate so many of his public speeches. And he s hould do it before Canadians pay tribute to the fallen on Canada Day. Otherwise, those tributes will be as hollow and vain as the wind that stirs and brings no rain.
WHY IS THE GOVERNMENT TURNING ITS BACK ON PETTER BLINDHEIM, A 94-YEAR-OLD VETERAN AND DECORATED WAR HERO?