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Pension...what Pension?
By Perry Grey, Chief Editor
VVi
VVi 26 Feb 2019 db pe
Ten dollars.
Just think about what you can
do with this amount.
Now consider that this is what
some veterans will receive as a monthly payment of the much
publicised “pension for life” which the federal government spent
months developing.
No kidding, veterans will
receive as little as ten dollars per month as the total for their
new pension and not a nickel more.
It is quite possible that it
costs more than ten dollars to send such pension amounts given the
number of federal agencies involved in the administration of the
pension for life. VAC had to determine which veterans were entitled
to the new pension, and there are thousands who are not, plus
Canadian Revenue Agency to collect the taxes because the pension is
taxable.
I guess that a measly ten
dollars is all that Canada can afford to give veterans based on the
prime minister’s infamous statement “they’re asking for more than
we’re able to give right now”.
Quite a different situation
compared than what was confidently said to Canadian voters in the
2015 election:
Reinstate the pension for
Veterans;
Not use omnibus bills; and
Be transparent and
accountable.
The pension for life is not a
reinstatement of the World War Two era Pension Act. In fact, the
Liberal Party is opposed to reverting to the Pension Act. It would
rather keep modifying the less generous New Veterans Charter (now
called the Veterans Well-being Act) of 2005 because this saves the
federal government a lot of money as compared to the Pension Act (we
are talking billions of dollars).
The pension was buried in the
2018 budget omnibus bill.
The federal government was not
transparent and accountable while it developed the pension for life.
It was not reviewed by Commons or Senate committees. In addition,
VAC ignored its own advisory group and stakeholders during the
development of the pension policy.
The New Veterans Charter or
Veterans Well-being Act was supposed to be living legislation to
ensure that the federal government honoured its commitments to
Canadian veterans forever. Instead being the “evergreen plan” as
described by then Minister of Veterans Affairs Seamus O’Reagan, it
is the “never green plan” because Veterans will never get what they
truly deserve from this mean spirited government. A government which
seems to have plenty of money for lots of other people as long as
they are not veterans.
Perry Gray is a
Regular Force veteran, serving as the Chief Editor of VVi. Perry has
been with VVi for 18 years. |