As Canada remembers its fallen, are our living veterans well served?

Remembrance Day and its emblematic red poppy are meant to honour Canadians who made the ultimate sacrifice in war, but it’s also come to include surviving veterans and serving military members, especially those scarred by their service.

The Conservative government, which has endured years of criticism for embracing Canada’s military heritage while short-changing its living representatives, insists it’s addressing the problems.

The independent watchdogs, ombudsmen appointed to deal with complaints against the National Defence and Veterans Affairs bureaucracies, agree there’s been progress on some files.

But one of the system’s most ardent critics says nothing has changed.

“Definitely not, not at all,” says retired colonel Pat Stogran, who was appointed Canada’s first Veterans Ombudsman in 2007 but whose contract was not renewed in 2010, reportedly because of his outspokenness.

Stogran told Yahoo Canada News what’s needed is an inquiry to reveal to the public how Veterans Affairs operates.

“There has to be a total housecleaning,” he said. “There has to be a full royal commission, a public inquiry into Veterans Affairs from the bottom to the top. And I daresay Canadians will be aghast at what I saw.”

Storgan, who served in Afghanistan, said his successor, Guy Parent, has been ineffectual as a veterans’ advocate.

“If you go through Guy Parent’s list of success stories you’d have to ask yourself are we getting almost six million dollars worth of substantive and enduring change to veterans’ programs that it’s costing us to have an office like that?” asked Stogran in our interview. “I would say absolutely not.”

Parent was unavailable for an interview but others believe he is helping to drive change, especially in the contentious New Veterans Charter, a perennial target for Stogran and other critics.

The charter, legislated by the Liberal government in 2005 and implemented by the Conservatives the following year, has been controversial, most especially for a provision that pays injured vets a lump sum and some monthly support to age 65 instead of a lifetime disability pension.

The Commons Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs issued a report last spring with 14 recommendations for revising the charter. Parent’s office issued its own report recommending revisions to the charter, accompanied by a detailed actuarial analysis.

“We remain committed to expanding and improving veterans benefits, working alongside veterans and their stakeholders which is why our government began implementing five of the standing committee recommendations almost right away while agreeing in principle to the many of the remaining recommendations,” the minister’s office said in an email to Yahoo Canada News.

But Stogran said the commitments fall far short of resolving the central problem – a department with a ‘deny culture’ whose objective seems to be behave like an insurance company and pay out as little money as possible.

“The government can make all sorts of promises about pouring money into the hopper,” he said. “If the bureaucrats take it upon themselves to preserve the public purse – as they told me they think their job is; it’s not to see it spent the way Canadians want to see it spent – then all of this is window dressing.”

Stogran doesn’t blame Veterans Affairs Minister Julian Fantino, who didn’t endear himself to veterans in a couple of insensitive encounters with them.

“I don’t really blame the minister, because the minister doesn’t know anything that the deputy minister doesn’t tell him,” said Stogran.”The focus of my angst is against the bureaucracy.”

The vast majority of contemporary veterans make a successful transition to civilian life, he pointed out. But a significant minority still aren’t getting the help they need.

“I’m talking about the ones who were severely disabled, either mentally, physically or spiritually,” he said.

[ Related: New veterans’ coalition refuses to work with government over decreased benefits ]

Stogran is also dubious about the ability of Gary Walbourne, the Canadian Forces and National Defence Ombudsman, to push much change for members of the active military.

Issues such as inadequate access to mental health services and criticism of the military’s “universality of service” policy that requires members not fit to be deployed to be discharged still rankle critics.

Walbourne has called universality of service “arbitrary and unfair” because it leaves those dealing with psychological problems vulnerable to being discharged. Soldiers who are overweight and out of shape don’t face the same risk, Stogran said.

The armed forces should not be allowed to release anyone who’s suffered physical or psychological injury until conditions are in place to help them on the outside, he said.

Walbourne, who was deputy Veterans Ombudsman for three years before taking up his new appointment last spring, is more optimistic about how National Defence and the military are responding.

“It’s usually the sad cases that make the headlines, but there’s been good progress made, even on the mental health front,” said Walbourne.

“Though it gets a lot of publicity, the department has really put effort into getting the staffing levels where they need to be, ensuring that the right tools and people are in place to help the members when they need it.”

The government faced a wave of criticism over the number of suicides of serving military personnel, which in the last 10 years has exceeded the number of soldiers killed in the decade-long Afghanistan mission.

“Can ever enough be done?” asked Walbourne. “The debt is going to be very hard to repay for someone who is hurt or injured or worse while they’re in the service. The effort is there, the desire is there. Sometimes it’s two steps forward and one step back but I do believe progress has been made.”

[ Related: Bill C-27 to prioritize hiring vets ‘a hollow promise,’ says advocate ]

Walbourne’s office is working on several larger files, including followups on how the forces handle operational stress injuries and inequity of compensation between reservists and full-time members of the military.

For example, the family of reservist Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, gunned down by last month by Michael Zehaf-Bibeau while standing guard at the National War Memorial in Ottawa, will get about half the death benefit provided for Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent, run over two days before in a Quebec attack by an apparent Islamist sympathizer.

“It’s a major concern,” Walbourne said of the disparity. “It’s one of the things through the New Veterans’ Charter review we hope will be adjusted accordingly.”

But the prime focus of Walbourne’s office right now is a joint project with Parent’s office to streamline the transition of serving members of the military back to “civvy street.”

Upwards of 5,000 forces personnel end their careers each year – one in four on average for medical reasons – and are handed off to Veterans Affairs. That transition is a major source of problems, said Walbourne.

“You know, 53 per cent of all complaints that we do register and take forward are to do with end of career,” he said.

“That’s where we need to focus, to take that uncertainty as a member takes off the uniform and moves to civilian life, to take that uncertainty off the table.”

The review will include a look at Bill C-27, legislation that would give veterans first crack at federal public service jobs.

Stogran is not sanguine about that either, pointing to an existing priority-hiring policy for injured vets he said has been largely ineffective. Many are turned away for not meeting standards for the postings.

“There’s always a barrier that’s thrown in front of them, anything from French training to past experiences,” he said.