With huge runaway deficits, Veterans are asking where all the money promised to Veterans in the last election is going. It certainly is not going to balance the federal deficit. The decision to abandon the balanced policy of the previous Conservative government, and then proceed to triple the size of the deficit promised in the last election was done, or so it was claimed, to boost the economy. This never happened. With federal plans to bring in a new Carbon Tax that will cost Canadians billions more in taxes, Veterans cannot be criticized for asking “where’s the cash?”
The decision to target Veterans’ benefits to pay for out of control spending was further revealed in the week before Remembrance Day. By shifting from the plan put in place by the previous Conservative government, the Liberal party predicts in its most recent budget it will remove $84-million in the next fiscal year and more than $100-million in each of the next four years as a result of its changes to the Veterans’ pensions program.
So, what has the Liberal party been spending Canadian tax dollars on that have been taken away from Veterans’ pensions?
According to new budget documents filed in the House of Commons, almost a billion dollars will be spent on the illegal immigrant crisis, which includes $50 million to the Provinces to house some of these economic migrants in expensive hotel rooms in Toronto because they have no place else to put them.
Another 800 million dollars will go to the Irving shipyard to build one ship at double the cost per ship of the ships that currently have been ordered. And on it goes.
The Trudeau government spent over $38 million on court proceedings involving Canada’s veterans over the past two years. When a military Veteran challenged the Liberal Veterans Affairs Minister with facts and figures confirmed by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Library of Parliament that Veterans were getting the run around, the Veteran was viciously attacked and called a liar by the Minister.
Under this government’s watch, the number of veterans waiting for disability benefits has ballooned to more than 29,000, with one-third of veterans waiting over four months for the benefits owed to them, if they even qualify. The government’s so-called Pensions for Life program will create three different classes of veterans as some new applicants will receive fewer benefits than those who applied over the past 12 years and substantially less than those who applied earlier than that. Veterans have every right to be disappointed in a government that breaks its promises.