Governments have let veterans down

Here is the letter by Ralph de Groot on 15 Aug that David Harris is responding to:

Veterans aren't important to Ottawa

Re: Feds to help homeless vets, Aug. 12

The Liberals plan to tell us in the fall what that help might be. It may include an emergency housing fund and other rental and mortgage assistance measures. Whatever will be launched may take five years to implement. It can't be done right now because that kind of financial help cannot be provided at present. There are also statutory restrictions; veterans must prove service-related conditions that led to their homelessness and there is only so much the minister can do. They appear to emphasize that veterans should help each other and have their own outreach activities to assist their comrades in need. In the meantime as many as 3,000 homeless vets best look for vacant spaces on park benches, under bridges and in alleys.

The government doesn't seem to consider the issue urgent. Public pressure for change is not evident because there still are Canadians who can't believe there even are homeless veterans in Canada.

Now the unending streams of so-called refugees, well dressed with classy luggage, illegally crossing our border into Quebec from a safe, democratic country where their lives are not in danger - well, that's different. That's urgent. They need highly paid RCMP officers to carry their bags, buses to drive them to all manner of taxpayer funded accommodation, be issued with health cards, finances and other assistance services. Payment is guaranteed by the Prime Minister. Ought we suspect that he borrows the funds from the Veterans envelope? After 150 years of stunning progress is this what these elitist, left-leaning Liberals force us to come to?

Ralph L. De Groot,

Denure Drive

http://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/2017/08/15/letters-to-the-editor-aug-15-2017

Governments have let veterans down - Letters to the Editor, Aug. 18, 2017

Mr. Ralph De Groot (Letters, Aug. 15) seems to think that the refugees streaming across our border are why veterans can't get a break from the Liberals.

Only one problem with this is that successive governments and yes, even the Conservatives, have slowly but surely chipped away at veteran benefits and pensions.

I mean, after all, Harper had 10 years to help these people put and all he did is what they have all done is trot them out for photo ops and then thrown them back in the closet and forget about them.

I mean, after all, it's OK for members of Parliament to get room upgrades and order $16 glasses of orange juice but heaven forbid that we should give a vet something that we actually owe them for their service to Canada. So before blaming a refugee who's fleeing either persecution or a country so poor the opportunities are almost nonexistent, blame a lack of real help for vets on successive governments looking to cut deficits on the backs of the vulnerable.

I mean, why pick on refugees unless you have a grudge against them and are trying to promote an alternate agenda and create a backlash against them? There are far bigger wastes of taxpayers dollars and better examples then what you have chosen, so stop spreading hate and fear about refugees and put this kind of thinking away and blame the people who are really responsible: The successive governments who have denied vets their rightful due.

David Harris, Walker Ave.

http://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/2017/08/18/letters-to-the-editor-aug-18-2017