Most Truthful Article About NVC

I have been following the NVC from thought to implementation to disgrace. This article by Mercedes Stephenson is the single most to the point article I have read about who is and will continue to get the short end of the stick...VETERANS! I have sent Mercedes an email telling her this but I think more of us need to send her a huge thank you and encourage her to keep writing articles like this until the Canadian citizens demand that Vets are no longer treated like cannon fodder. They are our sons and daughters. Brothers and sisters. Our protectors that need Canada's help when they return broken. Here is Mercedes email mercedes.stephenson@sunmedia.ca let's show her our appreciation.


Imagine the unimaginable: You receive a phone call that your 21-year-old son’s legs have been blown off in a bomb blast.

He’s clinging to life, catastrophically injured. He was protecting a group of small children from a bomb filled with nails and ball bearings laid near their school by someone who doesn’t like little girls learning to read.

I asked him to go to that neighbourhood, to make it safer because it’s something I think we should be doing and he did it because he’s courageous, and selfless and kind.

Don’t worry, I tell you, I’ll offer your son a percentage of $276,000 depending on the extent of his permanent injuries.

Less than $276,000 for his bravery, for his service, for his legs, for his permanently altered life, in a single, lump-sum payment.

I am Canada and your son is a soldier in the Canadian Forces.

In this Canada , long-serving Members of Parliament are entitled to pensions as rich as $100,000 a year.

In three years they will have exceeded the maximum amount a soldier injured in Afghanistan is eligible to receive through his lump-sum payout for his lifetime. The House of Commons might be a vicious work environment, but it rarely results in dismemberment.

In this Canada , if an army sergeant and a federal bureaucrat are on a military plane that crashes and they tragically receive identical injuries, they will not receive equal compensation. The bureaucrat will receive more money through his pension than the sergeant will through her lump-sum payout under the New Veterans Charter.

The NVC was brought forward with good intentions, but it has resulted in an absurd system that hurts our veterans and is compounded by a corporate insurance mentality by senior officials administering the program at Veterans Affairs Canada.

Bureaucrats questioning a psychiatrist’s assessment of psychological injuries suffered after witnessing atrocities of warfare, or demanding a veteran prove how disabled they are after losing an arm to an IED, is outrageous.

The arm is embedded with shrapnel, stop with the minutia and take care of the wounded.
The current system effectively exploits veterans who are operating in a military culture and loathe to complain, especially about pain or psychological injuries.

Military training to do what is best for the institution, and not to challenge authority, compounds this.

Pushing back on injured veterans’ claims in a bid to save money uses veterans’ self-sacrificing mindset against them and it’s simply wrong.

One of the most disturbing parts of the Charter is that in many cases injured veterans have effectively paid for their own veterans benefits. An injured soldier is entitled to up to 75% income replacement, however it is the insurance the soldier paid into throughout their career (SISIP) and not Veterans Affairs Canada that usually kicks in to cover this first, leaving VAC to cover the lump sum.

The lump-sum payout significantly reduces support to veterans and maximizes risk. The math is simple: A soldier who sustained non-catastrophic injuries before April 2006 and is eligible for a measly $500 a month will receive more government money in his lifetime than a soldier who loses both arms and both legs in Afghanistan tomorrow.

Even if a young vet suffering through the fog of injury and pain responsibly invests her lump-sum payout, the markets could crash, as they did in the last year, leaving her insolvent.

Canada has broken the contract of unlimited liability with her war fighters and peacemakers in the middle of a long and bloody war.

The moral imperative is clear. This is not a partisan issue. All parties approved the Charter. It was constructed and passed under Liberal and Conservative governments.

Now is the time for our government and politicians of all parties to take responsibility. Changes to the NVC have started, but don’t go far enough.

As a nation we must wrap our protective embrace around those who were injured protecting us, putting their lives on the line, doing the business of our nation.

It is a question of honour.