Ottawa lauds soldiers in the abstract

The article below (from the Toronto Star, Nov., 10th,) follows

up nicely to the article posted by Steve, on Tuesday's blog -

I am disgusted and heart broken by the Government's

handling of our Veterans.

Ottawa lauds soldiers in the abstract

The Conservative Government is big on the symbolism of war.
It lauds soldiers when they go off to fight and proclaims them heroes
when they die. It believes battle is a vital part of Canadian history. It
has spent millions of dollars celebrating the war of 1812 just to make
that point. It sees Remembrance Day as an opportunity not just to
reflect on the casualties of war but to glorify the idea of war itself -
as an honorable and necessary sacrifice that has built and continues
to build this country.
It finds both the United Nations and the UN peacekeeping a little squishy.
So on one level it is more than odd to find Veterans and their families
attacking this same rah-rah Government for it's cheeseparing approach
to the real individuals who made this sacrifice.
And at another level it is not.
This Government may glorify war in the abstract.
But it does not want to pay the price of war - or indeed much of any
thing else - in the here and now.
This week's appearance on Parliament hill of disabled Veterans and Military
widows critical of the Government was just the latest chapter in an ongoing
dispute. Disabled Veterans had to take Ottawa to court once to stop clawing
back portions of their pensions. Now a separate group of Vets is suing
the Government over another pension issue - Ottawa's decision to replace
lifetime disability pensions with a cheaper, one-time lump-sum payment.
In one court case, Stephen Harper's Government spent $750,000 in
legal fees fighting its own Vets and conceded defeat only after a judge
ruled Ottawa's claw backs blatantly unfair.
The issue of adequate pensions for disabled Veterans is about the
reality of war, a reality that the Harper Conservatives find disturbing.
If this Government treated disabled Veterans fairly, it would find itself
under pressure to treat poor, disabled or unemployed civilians in the same
manner. And it certainly doesn't want to do that.

So go out and fight for your country. If you die, you will be briefly praised.
If you live - well best of luck

 

Thanks Joe Y