IT’S OFTEN SAID that a person’s true priorities only come through when you look at how they spend their money.
The same is true of governments.
For example, the United States spends nearly $200 billion every year on mass incarceration.
So that’s a pretty big priority for them.
Up here in Canada, we’d like to think honouring our veterans is one of our true priorities – especially around this time of year.
We certainly know how to make a show of Remembrance Day, and rightfully so.
But a look at our federal government spending on Veterans Affairs Canada paints a different picture.
In September, Global News reported the Trudeau Liberal government has left more than $372 million that had been allocated to VAC unspent.
That may be only about three per cent of VAC’s overall budget, but in Canada especially, $372 million is nothing at which to sneeze.
The department has a backlog of disability benefit claims, and that amount of money could hire a bunch of case workers to get those claims processed.
Perhaps the hundreds of millions will be used to make right the pensions of veterans who were short-changed by an accounting error for nearly a decade, to the tune of $165 million.
Or maybe it could be used to settle the Equitas lawsuit that alleges the infamous change to lump sum benefits payments in 2006 amounts to discrimination against more recent veterans.
The prime minister was rightly pilloried back in February for his quote that veterans “are asking for more than we are able to give right now.”
But we are not giving veterans a gift.
We have placed these men and women in harm’s way, and have a duty to look after them when they come home, or look after their families if they do not.
A duty.
That sets expenditures on veterans apart from any other budget expenses.
If honouring our veterans really is a Canadian priority, our government needs to put our money where its mouth is.
