We should remember veterans’ sacrifices and finding ways to make those who survive whole again. Unfortunately, for many veterans and an increasing number of other Canadians, remembering injustice, inequity, and abusive bureaucratic practices has overshadowed honouring sacrifice. Remembrance Day is fast approaching, but improvement for disabled veterans has been a slow trickle of painfully inadequate…
Archive for the ‘Consultations’ Category
by Sean Bruyea OCT. 22, 2018 THE HILL TIMES The upcoming Veterans Stakeholder Summit on Oct. 29 is the summit of bureaucratic insensitivity when it comes to accessibility. Our disabled veterans and their families deserve more. More voice, more consequential input, and more dignified treatment. Mounties, pictured April 9, 2017, at the Canadian National Vimy…
April 18, 2018 (Volume 25-01) By Sean Bruyea & Robert Smol-ESPRIT DE CORPS MAGAZINE Everything Veterans Wanted to Know About the Liberals’ Pension for Life Plan … And Should Not Be Afraid to Ask Changes to the Pension Act resulting from the New Veterans Charter led to a demand for a new benefits plan…
Opinion: The Liberals promised the first meaningful reintegration program for veterans in decades. Then, the bureaucrats got involved by Sean Bruyea Apr 5, 2018 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, centre, greets veterans while visiting the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 128 in Sydney, N.S. on Thursday, November 10, 2016. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren Calabrese Sean Bruyea is a frequent commentator and…
By SEAN BRUYEA-THE HILL TIMES-MAR. 26, 2018 The new benefit doesn’t come close to addressing what veterans asked for and families need. Having an all-or-nothing program that anticipates recognizing only those with a ‘disability assessment of 98 per cent or greater’ does not acknowledge immense sacrifices that families endure caring for those suffering significant disabilities. Veterans…
By SEAN BRUYEA-THE HILL TIMES- MAR. 19, 2018 Behind the scenes, the Trudeau Liberal government continues a longstanding war on veterans in minimizing or denying access to democracy and due process, writes Sean Bruyea. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, pictured recently on Parliament Hill. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade OTTAWA—”Why are we still fighting certain veterans groups…
Patronizing veterans is the salient problem, not the solution. Sadly, new Veterans Affairs Minister Seamus O’Regan appears ready to reinforce, not resolve, the VAC cultural mess. Veterans Affairs Minister Seamus O’Regan, pictured Aug. 28, 2017, at Rideau Hall in Ottawa shortly before he was sworn into cabinet. If the first public comments of newly appointed Veterans…
‘He was a gifted broadcaster and is therefore a gifted communicator, and that’s an asset for this government,’ says former PMO staffer Scott Reid. Liberal MP Seamus O’Regan at the ceremony on Aug. 28 in which he was sworn in as Veterans Affairs Minister. Veterans advocates hopes he does more for former military personnel than…
If O’Reagan and the Trudeau government truly wish ‘real change’ as they promised, then cultural change at Veterans Affairs must be their focus. Seamus O’Regan outside Rideau Hall on Aug. 28 just before getting sworn in as Veterans Affairs minister. Sean Bruyea says if O’Regan wants to have a positive impact, he must change the…
If there is a debt owed our veterans, and government fails to plan ahead, then government must incur fiscal debt to honour the moral debt to our veterans and their families. Justing Trudeau and the Liberals may well pay the price for Kent Hehr’s lackadaisical approach to leadership in Veterans Affairs, write Sean Bruyea. The Hill…
Veterans Affairs Canada bombards media to sell inadequate programs with paltry incremental changes. Meanwhile, veterans and their families continue to suffer. Veterans will be unlikely to question Walt Natynczyk’s inaction and excuses for not moving on policy issues universally agreed-upon more than a decade before, writes Sean Bruyea. The Hill Times photograph by Jake Wright By SEAN…
The real question is whether PCO, Treasury Board, and, ultimately, the PMO are complicit in ramrodding inadequate and regressive measures upon veterans? Or are they merely negligent in perpetuating a system that rewards style over substance? Members of Canada’s Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry, pictured training in Drawsko Pomorskie Training Area on Sept. 8, 2016….
The Trudeau government is hosting a ‘stakeholder summit’ May 9 and 10. But having a former general and federal government representative chair a group of often marginalized individuals who are highly indoctrinated to be subservient to authority is truly a farce of a most un-Canadian kind. By SEAN BRUYEA PUBLISHED : Monday, May 9, 2016…
Alienation and abandonment by the Canadian government of its Canadian Forces veterans has long scarred our noble warriors and their families in a much more profound manner than what’s motivating the current worldwide protests. Into war: Canadian soldiers pictured in Afghanistan. Sean Bruyea says 600,000 CF veterans have been denied comprehensive programs including education in…