On Sunday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stood in front of the starkly beautiful monument near Arras, France that commemorates the Canadian victory at the Battle of Vimy Ridge. On the centennial of that First World War battle, Trudeau remembered the Canadians who died fighting “for peace” and said “never again.”
But veterans of today say Trudeau, like so many other prime ministers, is adept at remembering what veterans did 50 and 100 years ago but cannot assess the sacrifices and needs of veterans today, CBC News reports.
While Trudeau was honoring yesterday’s heroes of the First World War, Canadian veterans of more recent wars and military campaigns expressed their profound sense of betrayal that they say Trudeau’s Liberal government has given them.
The Liberals promised to revert back to a system of providing lifetime pensions for veterans after the previous Conservative government decided to offer lump sum payments to wounded warriors.
That hasn’t happened.
“I find it ironic that they’re celebrating the Battle of Vimy Ridge when they’re also fighting veterans in court,” Glen Kirkland, a veteran wounded in Kandahar, Afghanistan in 2008, told CBC News.
Kirkland was referencing a class-action lawsuit that veterans of Afghanistan are bringing against the current administration because they say what the government provides today is far less than it offered to returning soldiers, sailors and airmen from the Great War or Second World War.
“They’ve made promises and they’re not living up to them. They have to bring back the pension,” said Kirkland. “What better way to honour the sacrifices of Vimy than to actually look after the veterans of today.”
Trudeau and the Liberals continue to talk about full pensions for veterans but they have made no legislative moves in that direction and last month’s federal budget offered $600 million in educational funding for veterans while slashing defence spending.
When Trudeau returns from France this week, he is expected to announce the fulfillment of at least one campaign promise: the legalization of marijuana.
The federal government has alluded to some announcement coming later in 2017 that will affect veterans’ pensions, but government sources have said it will not be a promise kept to reinstate lifetime pensions.
Canada is not the only country that has frustrated its veterans. President Donald Trump ran a presidential election campaign that appealed directly to veterans who say they were harshly ignored and mistreated by the department of veterans affairs during the Obama years.
British defence secretary Michael Fallon said Sunday, “We have all tried to improve what we do for veterans in different ways.”
In all three countries, veterans continue to struggle with homelessness, poverty and mental health issues.
“We need to keep thinking as governments as to how we organize that help and make sure those who need it can get it,” Fallon told CBC News.