Call me a skeptic but is Mike Blais selling out veterans?

In all actuality I posed the question Rags lolI asked if Mike was selling out vets by lobbing for Liberal votes because of Trudeau and his platform to look into the sacred obligation, so................

Rags i apologize for getting a little heated i was busted up on two seperate exercises i spend 300 days a year a prisoner in my own home and i have to watch it fall apart because i cant repair it and i cant afford to have it fixed I receive 1000 reg pen and 1000va per month sisip dropped me in 2000 when they realized they would have to pay me for life at that time i was left with a total of 950 a month with 3 kids and no way to fight sisip , so when people talk sisip and va paying injured personal to much i see red. I would love to be able to go hunting cast a fishing rod ride a skidoo atv or go out for a simple walk hell it is agonizing just trying to empty the dish washer and be a good house bitch so when some one tells me im the problem with the system or dont deserve compensation it pisses me off. I also see your appealing sisip  good luck with your appeal not such a good system for a vet to have to rely on is it. That incident was nearly 40 years ago because of a shortage of impact delay fuses they were using vt and apparently the fuse stayed at its last setting not surprised it was swept under the rug never new the man personally.

I just want to correct a point here that Rags has made.

Pre 1999 VAC paid CF members for injuries in SDA's, and overseas posting.

If you were injured inside Canadian borders and were injured a CF member had to wait until release to start receiving VAC payments/benefits.

But here is the difference pre 99'...SDA VAC payments were tax-free and Canadian injuries were not tax-free.

It was changed in 99' as the GoC was confronted with this very same scenario...what is the difference between a SDA injury and an injury in Canada? Also why should one be tax-free and the other not?

So legally the GoC saw this as discriminating and changed the rule. And we all know the only reason they would change the rule is fear of a lawsuit.

Robbie,
I respect all the input we can agree to disagree. All I ask is think about why I ask the question. For those that bleed outside of battle......it does matter to joe public who pays the bill. We only sign for the death clause when we go into battle....the rest is just the best and coolest job on the planet.
Rags out

Wild Thing,
As a Canadian Gunner I know of no accident or combat incident that killed a Canadian gunner from artillery fire since Korea. I know of only a very very few incidents that cause injury from shrapnel to seriously injure members on exercise that was fired by a Canadian Gunner. In fact I was at a couple of the incidents and although scary at the moment was really no big deal. I fired many a danger close and had my vehicle and support call signs vehicles with 150 meters and at times in open trenches 80 meters from 155. As for 105mm even closer on occasion a few specks of metal cut into vehicles and equipment and the odd unlucky member of a FOO party. But nothing to be medivaced over just a little red badge of courage. Now dont call me callus now as I to walk with shrapnel in me to this day it was just fired by the enemy not my brothers on the gun line.

So Wild thing Im a little out of touch then on someone being killed or seriously injured from FOO danger close accident or any other artillery exercise. I did leave force in 03 but still had input on accident investigations that involved guns and Laser guided bombs due to my expertise right up to about 08. Not sure of incident you speak of, and Im always interested in that type of error.
Rags

Ok troops it matters not where we bleed, it matters not how we bleed, what matters is why we continue to lose our earned equality from a choice we made in the unified sacrifice to defend our country and fellow countrymen over absurd rhetoric about combat vs non combat. Rags.... thats all I got.... a simple question and you need to divide and conquer.... ok I get it. The length of ones scar neither gives credence or ownership to the injury, it is the manifestation of ones tale that allows that scar to grow into a legacy. However because a scar is visible then those that suffer a mental illness must be considered weak and hiding behind a legacy of some nefarious dark cloud, ironic to be judged by your own executioner and in my opinion (Scacred Obligation) needs to be adhered to regardless of your tours, combat non-combat, navy army air, an obligation to serve is a choice and in that choice our government needs to validate (doing the dirty work) because RAGS that to is not a singular choice it takes a vote in our senate to enact most peace and wafrtime acts those require lnon bias, moral, ethical and in some cases acceptance in sending your soldiers into harms way...... period.

RCN,
 We cannot look at this from element Army, Navy and Air. We just look at it as CF members. There is no difference in support or acceptance into better support based on trade.....it is all to do with activities around injury. So branch, trade and element cannot be in the conversation. Your Sailor A example is correct the Sailor hurt running on deck in an SDA gets more support then Sailor hurt at Halifax running track. The extra help Sailor A in SDA gets is that after 65 VAC looks after him to ensure he has dignity in old age. His real claim and support is work place insurance. When you take it to Soldier its the same as the sailor so one needs to drop the branch they are in. Soldier A in SDA gets same support as Sailor A. It is not broken in my view as I ask myself what was covered and was it far pre 99.......and wonder of all wonders it was far and it did work and everyone was happy.  

I will ask you all to ask yourself another question "What was wrong with the support provided CF members pre 99? Why did we change it? Why did we decide that after nearly 100 years of treating CF members wounded in combat different from non combat injuires? Was the old system fare? Why did it need to change? Did that change cause the Government to then change the charter.

Re Read my first post with questions then answer these to yourself. Do the research on work place injury and insurance support and why it exists and then think about the difference between that and combat. REMEMBER COMBAT IS NOT JUST FOR SOLDIERS!!!!All elements are at some point in combat. Pilots are in combat right now in Iraq! The airmen at the airfield fixing that jet are not. I Navy photographer in a helicopter shot down a few years ago was in combat. So drop the Army Navy Air force arguments they dont work.

For those that dont know.
Pre 99 wounded in combat got you immediate DVA Medical support and money for pain and suffering not a pension!!! While you still served!
Pre 99 Non combat injuries got you DVA support and money for pain and suffering after you retired from the forces.
After 99 all got it right away, This is the issue. Ask yourself what was fare what worked and why was it like that.

Rags

Well Rags, I can most certainly see your point of view about black, white and gray areas. It has brought to me some better understanding of our three elements. Ground would be it seems pretty much the only ones that may fit your explanation. But sea and air, they too are deployed into SDA but may not be shot at but they run the risk to be killed all the same. I guess the black is SDA and if one is injured then they are entitled to certain things that a person may not be if on exercise at home or in the non SDA. Where the ripple comes is the guy who may be jogging on the flight deck, the ship takes a heavy roll, the sailor goes down and becomes severely injured and must be returned home and is released later on medically. Now same scenario different area, non SDA, sailor jogging, ship rolls, sailor is hurt the exact same as the first sailor and is eventually medically released. Now sailor A he gets a lot more because his injury happened in a SDA, not sure if this is right. Change this up a little and a soldier gets hurt playing sports in SDA, he gets treated different then soldier from Gagetown that was also hurt playing sports, system is still broken.

I'm sorry Rags, but your logic is flawed. It's not like somebody who was injured during combat was ever told, "Sorry, we just gave your share of the budget to some Cpl who was injured while while on exercise in Gagetown.". The changes that were referring to, with regards to the disability pension, was only to allow those with non combat injuries to apply for compensation while still serving, instead of having to wait until they were released. It didn't change rules about who should be entitled to compensation, just when they were entitled to collect it. And the NVC, that reduced compensation for ALL injuries, was brought in to mitigate the future costs of the growing number of combat related injuries in Afghanistan, including PTSD. Also, since there is no federal workers compensation plan. only provincial plans, what happens if a CF member sustains a non combat injury while outside of Canada. I know in the Navy, a vast majority of our time at sea is spent either in International waters, or off the coast of the US. Who should be responsible for compensation for those injuries? The province of Nova Scotia, or Canada?


Basically, Veterans Affairs IS our workers compensation board, and the disability pension/award, is our LTD plan. Because to the Government of Canada, being injured in a fall, developing an OSI, or even getting shot, are all considered work place hazards, and are all treated the same.

I am also a gunner and i understand how many people the orders go through and it only takes one person to screw up a tinny bit to give everybody down range a bad day. I have seen so many safety violations ignored . WP with time fuse best fire works ever. It does not matter if a soldier blows his knee out playing floor hockey in Kandahar to blow off steam or at the base gym in gagetown. I lost part of right leg supporting a foo coarse being run by AIG'S. Safety was not high on their list that night. By the way i finished that exercise before going to ormocto hospital. SHOT OVER!!! Buy the way your goverment is wasting stealing and giving away the cash 6.5 billion to bill gates for africa 500 thousand to bill clinton i could go on and on.JESUS MAN WAKE UP.

Rex I said the examples you gave are same as any civy sailor encounters. That is a fact. Same with the Army and Airforce non combat related activities are easily comparable to civilian activities. You missed the point I was making. Im not lobbing for less support to veterans......Im hoping the support we get is fair to us as veterans and to the public who pays our bill. You fail to see that and injury while on duty is supported and covered by work place insurance how is that an issue? It urks me to see combat wounded getting less money because work place injuries are taking up the cash.......try looking at it from that perspective.

Cant have this conversation anymore.....as I said at start there is no logic to conversation when personal issues get caught up in the discussion. There is no way to have a fair honest and open unbiased conversation about such things as DVA verses Work place injury and support with the people who are injured. Its too bad but that ends the potential of a frank open discussion of what is wrong with the system and why it changed. In the end there are 3 types of CF member. 1) Those that got support pre 1960 2) those that got support 70 to 98 and last those that came after the millennium. Which approach was most fair? Read my first set of questions open your mind be honest....then talk to your friends and decide whats fair yourself.

My part in this ends.

Rags, saying that the stuff that those in the Navy do, is the same as any civilian sailor is absurd. That would be like saying that an infantry soldier does the same as a civilian hunter, walking around in the woods with a gun, looking to shoot something. The people on here, and other Veterans groups are trying to get MORE for disabled Veterans, and to treat all Veterans equally, so it really irks me that you would come on and lobby for the exact opposite. Fewer benefits for Veterans unless they were injured in combat. If that were the case, there would be no need for VAC, because the number of modern Veterans injured in direct combat, would not justify the expense.

Well As I said at the start hard to have these conversations when emotion gets brought into it. Not that emotion is not a good thing just that one cannot have a logical conversation with a person who cannot separate themselves from the centre of the argument. When you have an axe to grind you are the one who is being one sided.
I approached this with a view to explain why we have a new charter and how we changed from our approach 60s back to 90s forward. I guess Id suggest both Rex and Wild go back and read what I said. In Wildes example.....no you dont get any special combat extras ya get what anyone else gets in a work place accident....cause that is what it is. As a Gunner I under stand much better then you what occurs in danger close...I did them as a Foo I did them as an IG planning a danger close and all the work place safety that goes into it and I also did it live in combat. There is a fundamental difference between practice training i garrison and in combat even though the end result can e the same they are defiantly different.
Rex....you appear to me to be a little one sided. Your examples are all work place accident issues. Civy sailors go through the same thing. As for the jeep shot at and then an accident....well if it was in an SDA then they get the DVA support I suggested after 65 and LTD now. If the accident was due to the shooting then obviously by what I said they get full coverage it is rather simple black and white. In my example they get full coverage....WHY IS THAT AN ISSUE?

There are three classes of people in this country.........1 those who pledge to protect their country with their lives...........2 those who work hard and pay taxes for the privilege of that protection...........3 scum like politicians etc etc those who use 1,2, for their own self serving interest and steal from them for that purpose. point being dont stir s--t up in your own class when we all know the problem is in the 3 class section.

Rags, your rationality seems a little one sided, and narrow minded. The dangers associated with a life in the military are much more than just combat. You are doing things that people outside of the military are not exposed to, even while in Canada. My father saw a man lose his head to a helo rotor blade, during an exercise in Canada. We had a guy lose his head in the stores elevator on ship. Hell, I've even seen a woman lose three fingers to a slamming door on ship. Or Airborne that break several bones, and then the consequences of the fall, just because their chute didn't open fully. Are these people, or their families not entitled to compensation, just because they weren't being engaged by a uniformed enemy? I remember almost being swept overboard a few times. On my first ship, HMCS Terra Nova, part of watch turnover was to test the Fire Control director on top of the bridge. That meant that I had to climb on top of the the director, which was roughly 60 feet above the water line, and remove the locks on the radar dome. We didn't have safety belts, and did this regardless of the weather or time of day, and you were by yourself. So if something happened, nobody would know for several minutes. But I remember one night, doing this in the pitch black, and getting hit by a wave that would have washed me overboard, if I hadn't been able to reach out and grab a waveguide. So a three inch piece of metal and a strong grip saved my life that night, but I wasn't involved in combat. So what happens if a jeep full of Canadian soldiers, has a pot shot taken at it , and in attempting to escape the area, they get into a car accident? They were not hit by a bullet or shrapnel. The accident wasn't caused by direct enemy action. So are those soldiers not entitled benefits from DVA?

The only aspect that I agree with, is those people who get full coverage by DVA, just because they were diagnosed while in a SDA, with illnesses that have absolutely no bearing on where they are, such a s cancer or diabetes.