Liberalism - Through Hell to Apathy

Visit any Royal Canadian Legion or Army, Navy and Air Force Vets Club (ANAVETS) across the country and you’ll know what I’m talking about.  There are signs everywhere of fateful decline and muted anger.  Supported by our vets from the various services, these gathering points are facing a bleak future.Legion membership peaked in 1983 at about 600,000 members, but as the Second World War generation of soldiers began dying off, so did much of the membership.  Today it stands at 350,000, scattered across 1506 branches.  Since 2008 alone, 54 branches, mostly in small communities, have closed, and only seven have opened.  Our present champions in Afghanistan make up only a small contingent and won’t be able to add enough of a critical mass to keep the various veterans clubs alive and well in the future.These are important statistics because they tell a vital demographic tale that lies behind some significant neglect.  Many of us have family members who are veterans and we’ve all felt the nagging suspicion that behind our grand patriotic rhetoric something is deeply amiss.  I spent a few hours in a Legion a last week and the members spoke often of the futility and sense of hopelessness that characterizes their present struggle for survival and recognition.With our last World War One veteran passing a short while ago, and with World War Two veterans dying off in ever-increasing numbers, it would be tempting to just view this as the tragic passing of a heroic generation.  Yet the neglect has far deeper consequences than that.There are three main streams of veterans in Canada today.  The aforementioned 155,000 “traditional” veterans are suddenly under stress, as pension benefit plans and other services are being cut.  There are then the second generation of veterans, made up of those from Cyprus, Haiti, Bosnia, Darfur, and the Congo.  These have been long ignored, especially in issues related to post-traumatic stress disorder.  Those veterans of the Afghanistan conflict make up the third group, with many experiencing difficulty in accessing basic services, not only for themselves but their families.  The recently announced cuts to Veterans Affairs Canada only enforced the belief that those days of taking care of those who took care of us are in the past.  It has been a slow and ponderous decline, leaving an impression of inevitability.  The Veterans Charter, signed by the previous government in 2005, was meant to arrest this deterioration, yet it has proved ineffective.And what are we to make of yesterday’s news that Pat Strogan, a retired colonel, national Veteran’s Ombudsman, and the man charged with defending the rights of veterans and their families, has been let go by the present government?  It’s the wrong message to send at the absolute wrong time.  “Our heroes are suffering,” he opined.  The particular cause of his press conference yesterday was the reduction to the group insurance disability pension for seniors, but he made it clear that problem is far greater in scope.  “These are your sons and daughters, your brothers and sisters.  The time is now to do something about it.”  This former commander of our military forces in Afghanistan feels this country is failing its heroes in ways far greater than just incremental pension decline.  A class action lawsuit with 6,500 veterans is being launched against the government over its treatment of veterans.No country can be healthy that denies those that fought for its legacy.  All the fighter jets in the world can’t battle that decline.  It’s all the more baffling considering it is happening under a Conservative administration.  Support for a strong military and its personnel were once as sacred to conservatives as low deficits.Reasoning that fewer veterans means less need for funding turns common sense on its head.  The gradual waning of a veteran presence in Canada should mean that those fewer remaining should be receiving the “Cadillac” of services.  The money saved as our heroes pass away should lead to more enhanced benefits, especially the solid continuation of outlays for the widows who survive.  A government should never treat veterans as if they’re asking for a hand out when it comes to benefits they were promised.  If it wasn’t for those veterans there would be nothing to hand out in the first place.A liberal heritage in Canada is one that encourages citizens to self-organize, to put the greater good above their own.  No exercise by any citizenry comes close to the kind of dedication shown in a war effort.  Liberalism should not only acknowledge the reality of this truth, but embody it by rewarding those that provided us the right to practice our philosophy.  The decline in veteran support preceded the present government, yet has taken on sinister tones in the last few years.  It shouldn’t be a partisan issue, but it always seems to be.Churchill stated in 1942, that, “if you’re going through hell, keep going.”  Well our veterans did exactly that.  It’s tragic to think they came out of the other side of hell only to arrive at apathy.  This should never be an inevitable slide to indifference.  The loss in veteran numbers should make those who remain more sacred as the years pass, and not just in mere rhetoric.