New veterans' coalition refuses to co-operate with government over decreased benefits

As Remembrance Day nears, a split is widening among veterans’ organizations over how to push the Conservative government to improve their treatment of veterans.

Six organizations announced Thursday they’d formed the Canada Coalition for Veterans, and their first action would be to boycott government photo opportunities and announcements.

“They draw us forward, they take the picture and then they don’t do what they promised,” Blais said. “It’s time to stop that.”

But the new coalition does not have the support of the country’s largest veterans’ group, the Royal Canadian Legion, exposing a rift in the vets community over how best to pressure Ottawa over a long list of perceived inadequacies.

One of the new group’s leaders says low-profile advocacy isn’t getting results for troubled and impoverished vets, so it’s time to step up that pressure.

“We’re not vocal enough to make them address it,” Michael Blais, president of Canadian Veterans Advocacy, told Yahoo Canada News on Friday.

“This government only responds to public pressure. This is why we formed the coalition. Yes, it’s six groups today but we’re hoping it will be 20 groups tomorrow because our message is simple: Equality for all veterans.”

The coalition has sent a 14-point letter to Veterans Affairs Minister Julian Fantino and Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Blais said it so far has not received a response.

Yahoo Canada News submitted a request to the minister’s office for comment but received no response by deadline.

Much of veterans’ anger has been focused on the way the Conservatives have implemented the New Veterans Charter, widely perceived as providing less generous benefits and services to modern vets compared to those given to their predecessors.

There’s also been an outcry over services to veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress and other mental disorders. Critics say there have been more suicides from PTSD than deaths during the Afghan combat mission.

A group of veterans launched a lawsuit over the charter’s provision to pay disabled veterans a lump sum instead of a lifetime pension, which opponents argue is discriminatory.

[ Related: Vets and PSAC protest Veterans Affairs office closure ]

There was an uproar last spring after government lawyers, trying to have the suit dismissed, argued the government had no constitutionally protected “social contract” to care for veterans. Proponents say this was promised in the First World War and renewed several times since.

There have also been widespread protests over the closure of regional Veterans Affairs offices, forcing vets to go to Service Canada outlets when they need help.

Blais said the deaths of two soldiers, RCAF Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent and army reservist Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, in what the government has labelled terrorist attacks, highlight the disparity in the way veterans are treated.

Cirillo, gunned down as he stood guard at the National War Memorial in Ottawa, was a Class A reservist and therefore his family was only entitled to a 45 per cent death benefit.

“Meanwhile, Warrant Officer Vincent was run down and equally killed, but he gets 100 per cent,” Blais said. “I don’t think that’s fair.

“And I don’t think it’s fair that there are memorial cross widows living in poverty simply because they’re not eligible for the new veterans charter anti-poverty provision.”

Blais said the benefits veterans of the Afghanistan mission are eligible for are less than what he received for non-combat injuries suffered during Cyprus peacekeeping and duty in Germany.

Blais estimates the six organizations in the coalition represent more than 100,000 of the 700,000 armed forces vets estimated by Veterans Affairs Canada.

But the coalition won’t be getting support from the single largest group, the Royal Canadian Legion, which claims 308,000 members, including veterans families.

“The legion has their own agenda,” Blais said. “It does not suit the needs of the wounded.”

Retired Lt.-Col. Bradley White, the legion’s dominion secretary, said the new coalition’s members had pulled out of an assembly of veterans’ organizations that met twice a year, hosted by the legion, to develop a common approach on Ottawa’s policies.

[ Related: Legion chief slams Ottawa’s claim it’s not bound by longstanding promises to wounded veterans ]

“They take a different view on how to advocate than what they believe other organizations should, so I guess they’ve decided not to participate any more and join their own organization,” White said in an interview.

White said the split is puzzling because the coalition’s position largely jibes with the legion-sponsored veterans’ assembly.

“In actual fact, there’s really not a lot that they’re bringing forward at this stage of the game.”

Blais suggested the divisions go deeper and that the legion seems more willing to compromise rather than push the government hard.

“On the advocacy level, the legion’s position has been obstructive for the last three years,” Blais contended. “They sanctioned the New Veteran’s Charter.

“They had eight years to affect changes and demand changes. But the changes they’ve asked for do not even equate to what the wounded are suing the government for.”

White rejected the criticism.

“We’re very public in advocating for veterans,” pointing to two letter-writing campaigns, one of which led to an increase in funeral and burial benefits for veterans and another now pressing Ottawa to adopt 14 changes to the charter recommended last June by the Commons Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs.

“We’re very vocal in our advocacy,” White said. “It’s just that we make our presentations to Parliament, we have our meetings with government officials and we work things out to benefit our veterans.”

Blais said the boycott is just the first step in the coalition’s strategy, which will include making veterans’ issues part of next year’s federal election campaign.

“We will be proactive,” he said.

White said the legion will maintain its non-partisan stance.

“We tend to stay very much away from political parties and their policies,” he said. “We look at the government policy and how it’s implemented.”