Harper pledges new deal for veterans: Conservative leader says he would enact veterans' bill of rights
PUBLICATION: Times Colonist (Victoria)
SECTION: News
PAGE: A6
BYLINE: Bill Cleverley
**Excerpt**
Like a reverend preaching to the choir, Stephen Harper promised a group of veterans Wednesday his government would enact a veterans' bill of rights and give them the upper hand in disputes with the federal government.
Harper also pledged to compensate aboriginal veterans for what he called 60 years of mistreatment since the end of the Second World War, although he couldn't say how much compensation they might be entitled to.
Speaking at Victoria's Trafalgar-Pro Patria Legion to about 50 grey-haired veterans, many wearing blue blazers sporting campaign medals, Harper promised to conduct a review of veterans' health services and look at the makeup of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board.
He said the board is tainted by patronage appointments. His plan is to appoint qualified medical, military and veteran members capable of deciding appeals on an informed basis.
"We continue to receive complaints that the department is not service-oriented, Harper said, adding that people are treated like numbers.
The sympathetic crowd welcomed Harper's suggested changes.
"The Liberals took all of our money out of our pension fund and they used it for adscam payments and they used it for the billion-dollar gun-control thing and they used it for patronage jobs for buddies," said veteran Billy Willbond.
"Now when we go to get a raise in our pensions down the road there's no money in the fund. ... If the cost of living goes up five per cent then our pensions should go up five per cent, not 1.7 per cent."
Willbond applauded Harper's plans to re-invest in Canada's military with an eye to protecting Canada's sovereignty.
"When the Liberals disbanded the Airborne Regiment they did away with Canada's expertise in winter warfare," he said. "We used to go to the Arctic. Nine hundred of us would drop in there."
Harry Stinson, past vice-president of the Canadian Peacekeeping Veterans Association, said his organization had a hand in crafting Harper's suggestions.
Harper said the issues surrounding aboriginal veterans have to be dealt with.
"Just about everybody except the [Prime Minister Paul] Martin government acknowledges there is a historic injustice there. Most aboriginal veterans received virtually none of the benefits the veterans were entitled to and that's something we plan to act upon," he said.
Harper noted that the current Veterans Charter, which changed federal legislation to reflect the fact that Canada's military veterans will be younger and need different services in the future, was not proclaimed by Martin's government despite its easy passage in the Commons.
The charter would be put in place by the Conservatives, he said, in addition to the development of the bill of rights, which would streamline how claims are handled to get them through the system faster. The proposed Conservative bill of rights would also provide a presumption in favour of veterans on most claims handled by the government.
