Fulfil ‘sacred’ duty to vets
Never has there been a crasser distillation of Ottawa’s skewed sense of its moral duty to those who have fought and been injured for this country than an argument put forward by government lawyers in 2012. In an effort to block a class-action lawsuit by six injured Afghan war veterans, the attorneys argued that the federal government has no “sacred obligation” to ex-soldiers and that Parliament is in no way constitutionally constrained in its judgment of how much, or how little, compensation they deserve.
The Conservatives continued in this dubious legal fight for years, costing Ottawa about $700,000 in the process, until political circumstances forced them to change tack. In the lead-up to last year’s federal election, beset by critics, the Harper government finally delivered an overdue boost to Ottawa’s grossly inadequate veterans’ benefits.
It even tabled a bill, which eventually passed, recognizing the government’s “sacred obligation” to Canada’s men and women in uniform. The plaintiffs agreed to stay proceedings until May 2016, at which point they would determine whether sufficient progress had been made to drop the action altogether.
When the Liberals won the election, the case appeared destined for amicable settlement. In opposition, Justin Trudeau had called for the government “to live up to our sacred obligation, end this court battle and start giving our veterans the help they deserve.” As prime minister, Trudeau reiterated this sentiment in his mandate letter to Veterans Affairs Minister Kent Hehr, calling on him to ensure that the “government lives up to our sacred obligation to veterans.”
Strange, then, if not utterly bewildering, that government lawyers will reportedly resume their appeal this week on the ground that Ottawa has no sacred obligation to veterans. Yes, believe it or not, the Trudeau government wants the court to acknowledge that Ottawa does not have a duty it has argued repeatedly and persuasively that it has.
The truce came undone over a Liberal campaign promise, restated in Hehr’s mandate letter, to “re-establish lifelong pensions as an option for our injured veterans.” The controversial 2006 New Veterans Charter mostly replaced pensions with lump-sum payments. But many have argued this unfairly disadvantages exsoldiers who live longer, and that veterans suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder are ill equipped to manage the large one-time payouts.
Despite the Liberal commitment, there was no mention of veterans’ pensions in the federal budget. As the deadline for deciding the fate of the lawsuit approached, the plaintiffs asked the government to commit to a timeline for implementing its promises. But lawyers representing the injured ex-soldiers say Hehr refused, giving them no choice but to continue with the action.
For his part, Hehr says the Liberals merely inherited this lawsuit. “I find it deeply regrettable that, under the former government, veterans had to take this step to ensure their well-being,” he told the Globe and Mail on Monday. No mention of why his government refuses to lay out a timetable for delivering on its commitments. Or why it appears to have permitted its lawyers to pursue a line of argument in direct contradiction of its long-held, proudly touted position.
The costs of the best possible care for our veterans should be built into any decision that puts soldiers in harm’s way. That’s the duty Trudeau invoked when he called on the Harper government to “end this court battle and start giving our veterans the help they deserve.” Whether Ottawa finally fulfils that obligation, or continues its shameful history of dereliction, is now his to decide.
The federal government should end its insistence that it has no sacred obligation to ex-soldiers