LETHBRIDGE — Canada’s government is ready to send more men and women to war but is no longer willing to help them when they return home traumatized or wounded, says the federal veterans’ ombudsman.
Pat Stogran, a retired colonel who served in Bosnia and Afghanistan, said each mission has become more dangerous than the last yet the same soldiers keep being sent back to war zones over and over again.
“Some people have accumulated more time (in combat) than soldiers in the Second World War,” said Stogran, who was in Lethbridge on Wednesday to meet with southern Alberta veterans.
“But we keep sending them overseas.”
He said what’s different from now from Second World War times is how soldiers are treated when they return home.
While the federal government offered a range of benefits — land grants, education, disability pensions — when troops came home in the 1940s, Stogran said the current government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper seems prepared to ignore them.
If today’s soldiers return home with a mental health or a physical ailment, he said the Veterans Affairs Department fails to meet their needs. Instead, they refer them to overburdened provincial health systems.
“These people have put their lives on the line for their country,” said Stogran.
But they’re no longer a priority for the federal government, “they’re just another line in the budget.”
Even when they’re clearly entitled to a benefit, returning soldiers are sometimes stonewalled.
“The bureaucracy is horrendous,” he said. “We’re working with them and trying to offer our insights.”
As Canada’s first ombudsman for military and RCMP veterans, Stogran said he spends much of his time visiting ex-service members across the country and hears first-hand how their issues are addressed.
“They’ve been very poorly treated” in many cases, he said. “They’re being cheated by the system.
“What’s also sadly lacking is proper treatment for their spouses and kids.”
Stogran said even when a service member returns home apparently unscathed, the experience can inflict scars on the entire family.
“When I was in Bosnia, my family went through hell,” Stogran said, adding that it wasn’t until his children became adults that they were able to express how deeply his absence and his dangerous work affected them.
Stogran’s three-year term ends this fall and he said he hasn’t been told yet if he will be appointed to another term.
“I’m a little more passionate about veterans’ issues than they might have expected,” he said, noting that Harper’s government hasn’t often re-appointed an auditor or ombudsman who speaks out.
“But I’m not letting that cloud my objectivity . . . the system is seriously broken, and it certainly needs attention.”