|
An
Independent Charter
(What
to Do with Leftover Turkeys)
Perry
Gray, Chief Editor VVi
VVi
2011
| “The
overwhelming majority of politicians and senior bureaucrats
have never and will never make the same sacrifice caring for
veterans as veterans and their families have sacrificed
giving up everything to care for government and
Canadians.”
Sean Bruyea |
In
the last periodical, I discussed the poor performance of formal
Veterans organisations, the Office of the Veterans Ombudsman and
Veterans Affairs Canada to responsibly represent the Veterans
Community. All three
seem more intent on collaborating with each other behind closed
doors than ensuring that the Veterans Community is treated with
dignity and respect. Instead
the community has been subjected to decades of abuse that is
contrary to the democratic principles espoused by our federal
government and which the CF and the RCMP defend.
I also lamented the many examples of how VAC has been
intransigent in performing its role, in particular by not ensuring
that the New Veterans Charter is "living
legislation".
There have been over 400 recommendations and the Enhanced NVC (C-55)
incorporates only four or less than one per cent.
I
suggested that every member of the Veterans Community can do
something to rectify this situation.
Efforts can be as simples as participating in events such as
the national protest scheduled for 5 November.
It is also long overdue that we do something significant to
protect our status. The
failures of formal groups, the OVO and VAC means that Veterans
should be considering other options in order to achieve this. It is time for us to emulate the successful reformers who
helped to create some of the democratic states and ideas throughout
history. Many social
activists (women suffragettes and civil rights activists) faced much
greater opposition than we do and yet they overcame obstacles to
achieve success.
There
is no need to form yet another group to advocate for reforms as this
only serves to further divide the Veterans Community.
Of note, the majority of members do not currently belong to a
group so the groups do not truly represent the majority.
This is not likely to change in the near future.
This means that we have to develop a grassroots movement that
is an informal brain trust to ensure that our needs and requirements
are properly addressed.
What
I am proposing is that we work to realise the One Veteran, One
Charter. There is
already national acceptance of the first part, despite repeated
efforts by VAC to segregate the Veterans Community into many
distinct groups (peace time, war service, regular, reserve,
military, police, etc.):
"What
VAC fails to acknowledge is that there is only one category of
veterans, service members having voluntarily served in this
country's military forces in time of war and peace, past, present
and into the future."
National Council of Veteran Associations (NCVA)
"Whether active duty,
retired, or reserve - is someone who, at one point in his/her life,
signed a blank cheque made payable to "The People of
Canada", for an amount up to and including my life." VVi
It is enshrined in the Pension
Act, which is one of the most important pieces of legislation prior
to the NVC:
“Male
and female members of the forces under this Act enjoy equality of
status and equal rights and obligations under this Act.”
Now it is time to concentrate on
the second part.
Personally, I would prefer going
backwards in time before the NVC was implemented.
The majority of the Veterans Community is still covered by
pre-NVC legislation. The
RCMP rejected the NVC, so it will continue to be covered by older
legislation. This
option is not really viable for a number of reasons including the
difficulty in getting any government to repeal legislation.
A more likely option is to create a new charter that will
apply to all members of the Veterans Community and incorporate all
of the concepts that have been presented in the recommendations to
the NVC as well as older legislation and programs. This will be a major “do it yourself” project.
One of the many military
applications of Murphy’s Law and related corollaries is:
Never
reinforce failure. Failure reinforces itself.
There
is ample evidence that the NVC is a failure as are the attempts to
alter it. So it is time to stop reinforcing failure.
The groundwork has already begun. The initial draft exists in the aide
memoire (How To Repair
The Social Contract Between Veterans And The Canadian Government) posted on this website.
I encourage everyone to read and discuss it.
The
aide memoire is by no means a final product. It is instead intended
as an “aide” to stimulate discussion, solicit ideas and bring
disparate individuals, groups and institutions together to create a
universal charter which applies to all veterans and their families.
Over time, VVi will adapt the aide memoire to include ideas provided
by the Veterans Community and others. After
all, Veterans should be deciding their destiny in equal partnership
with elected officials. Bureaucrats exist merely as implementers and
administrators of what they are instructed to do by this
partnership. To the
detriment and clear belittling of the Veteran Community and all that
sacrifice entails, bureaucrats have been unilaterally deciding what
our future should be. This is wrong and must stop.
Included in the draft charter should be a definition of a
Veteran, a bill of rights and detailed benefits and programs
available to the Veterans’ Community.
Furthermore it must be "living
legislation" as one of the reasons given for creating the NVC
was that VAC arbitrarily retired older programmes.
This is our opportunity to
redress grievances and ensure that our needs are met.
This will require lots of discussion and writing.
It will take time to develop the charter; something that was
not done with the NVC. Do
not wait for bureaucrats to decide your destiny or one or two
sycophantic leaders of veterans groups to do the work, start doing
your own now.
As part of a truly universal and
effective Independent and Universal Veterans’ Charter, one of the
most important objectives is the creation of a truly independent
OVO. Veterans do not
have an association like the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC)
with its member groups such as the Union of Veterans Affairs
Employees (I recommend reading the welcome statement on the UVAE
website in which the sacrifices of Veterans are used to rationalise
the founding of PSAC – how ironic).
Therefore it is essential that we have an organisation that
can provide some of the services like those of PSAC:
“PSAC
strives to enhance its members' quality of life and has been at the
front of a variety of significant and successful campaigns for
workplace and human rights, including the struggle for equal pay,
enhanced workplace health and safety and the rights of same sex
spouses.”
We
need legislation that is applicable to specifically the military and
the RCMP. This would not only mean obtaining the minimal
requirements of a PSAC-like agreement, but goes further into
territory that is unique to CF members and RCCMP members.
There are plenty of examples on
the PSAC and associated websites that demonstrate how the federal
government has failed to respect its own laws with regards to the
fair treatment of its employees.
No Canadian should have to rely on the government and its
departments without the benefit of an independent and dedicated
advocate for the rights of veterans and their families.
The ombudsman should be
independent of VAC and be a subordinate to parliament like the
following offices:
·
the
Privacy Commissioner;
·
the
Access to Information Commissioner;
·
the
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner;
·
the
Public Sector Integrity Commissioner; and
·
the
Commissioner of Lobbying.
An integral component of an effective
Universal Charter is an appeal body which works for the Veteran and
not against Veterans. The Veterans Appeal and Review Board (VRAB) is
clearly overdue for reform. Its
membership and decisions have long been rightly criticised.
VRAB or an independent organisation should be reviewing all
of VRAB’s actions, ensuring that there is both logic and
conformity in the decision-making process.
The latest criticism is that VRAB is not respecting the Federal
Courts Act and Judicial Reviews let alone the long-standing
criticism that they not only ignore the “benefit of the doubt”
clause but that they take excessive effort to rule against the
Veteran and survivors.
Our
pensions and benefits should be, at the very least, on par with
those of federal politicians and public servants.
Disabled veterans should never be given less than federal
public servants or MPs. Not only are program benefits less than
public servants and MP’s, but programs for Disabled Veterans are
subjected to excessive and dilatory exceptions such as the widely
and universally condemned unfair deductions from SISIP. Adding
further to the financial troubles of disabled veterans, their
limited CF pensions are clawed back by CPP disability benefits.
Veterans released in the 1975 to 1997 timeframe are particularly
marginalized as they were subjected to artificially low CF salaries
upon which their LTD payments and CF pensions are based.
Any
Veteran wounded or injured in the line of duty must receive a
lifetime pension in addition to other financial benefits and
services regardless of length of service. Unfortunately, as we have
all learned, the NVC summarily erased this 90 year tradition of
providing lifetime pensions and instead replaced such dignity with
the indignity of far too inadequate lump sum payments. In
contrast, an MP is entitled to a pension after six years of service
and those who do not qualify still receive hefty severances, which
are usually more generous than the average lump sum paid to Veterans
covered by the NVC. For
example, an MP who served for 2.5 years received a severance of $78,
886 and an MP with 11 years service received a pension of $54,544.
The average lump sum payout under the NVC is a mere $40,000. Sean
Bruyea provided the following information:
“…senior
bureaucrats are not only provided with disproportionately high
salaries but they also receive “at-risk” and performance bonus
lump sums annually. For instance, a senior DM at VAC could be
earning the maximum salary of $309,600 plus an
annual bonus of up to 39% or $120,744…It
is hardly comforting to realize that a DM in one year can earn a
total of $430,000. This is 50% more than the amount 134 veterans
have received for a 100% disability award of $285,000…an award to
compensate for substantial lifelong pain and suffering.”
There
are a number of financial programs that could be included.
Why not make our pension funds work for us?
Rather than the federal government, in effect appropriating
our monies by denying lifelong pensions, these otherwise allocated
funds could be used to provide the Veterans Community with low
interest loans and mortgages as well as grants.
This was a service provided after the Second World War and
loans helped Veterans establish businesses and buy homes, all of
which contributed to economic prosperity.
Veterans’
medical and dental should be better, a lot better.
The federal government tries to make provinces responsible
despite the fact that the federal government has a responsibility
for hundreds of thousands of Canadians, who are not covered by
provincial programs. VAC
or provincial providers, despite the recommendations of the health
care providers treating Veterans, reject too often drugs and health
care services. This has
to be reformed.
Our
families need to be meaningfully and substantially included in both
the benefits and the process to create those benefits.
The process to design those benefits within the structure of
a universal charter must be accompanied by a clear and indisputable
guarantee that veterans and dependents will be cared for in more
than empty words and meaningless Bills of Rights and VAC mission
statements. Before
anyone goes off to serve Canada they should know that there are
concrete guarantees that all Veterans and dependants will be
financially secure and healthy.
In
addition to the Veterans Community, input from other sources will be
essential. Rehabilitation and medical specialists, not bureaucrats
should be working with Veterans to design the programs. SISIP
Vocation Rehab Program (VRP) is comprised of mostly ex-military who
often suffer disabilities. All VRP case workers have hands-on field
experience and are academically trained unlike VAC Case Managers who
are “case managers” in name only. Federal Workers’ Compensation and Labour Program should be
compared as well as other federal legislation (A survivor of a federal government employee killed by a violent act at
work may be eligible for
a guaranteed supplementary income benefit).
No
part of the future charter can be retired without consulting all
stakeholders. VAC is already guilty of doing this with pre-NVC programs.
This is not only illegal (contrary to the DVA Act), it is just plain
wrong.
Anyone
who opposes this collaborative grass-roots project, such as senior
managers at VAC, can be considered anti-Veteran and unpatriotic.
Now that should ruffle a few turkey feathers!
|
The
Veteran's Duty
We,
the veterans, are here to support the soldiers of today and
the veterans of tomorrow. Everything we do now, or don't do
will affect these young men and women when they eventually
do remove the uniform. Their well-being is paramount. This
is the duty of the veteran.
VVi
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Veteran's Aide Memoire:
https://veteranvoice.info/archive/aide_memoire/Vet_Aide_Memoire.pdf
(Perry
Gray is a military veteran, having served 26 years in the CF Land Force
(Army). He has been the Chief Editor of
VeteranVoice.info since 2003.)
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Canadian Forces Chief of Defence Staff Military Family Fund:
