The statistics are rather staggering, but they are stark reality at just how quickly those who served our country in wartime are starting to pass on. Because of this, it’s really no surprise that Ottawa is considering scaling back the department that has been looking after their needs for several decades.
Every month 1,700 more veterans from the Second World War and Korean War die. Of the 1.1 million men and women who fought in those two wars, only 155,700 still alive. It will only be a matter of time before Canada mourns the passing of its last Second World War and Korean veterans .
Does that mean the department needs to be made smaller or coupled with another department? Sackville-Eastern Shore MP Peter Stoffer doesn’t think so. He believes any move to reduce the size of the department should be distressing to members of today’s Canadian Forces and the RCMP. Stoffer contends that while the number of war veterans is declining because of time, ongoing peacekeeping missions around the globe and today’s mission to Afghanistan will require a permanent presence of a department for veterans’ affairs.
Instead of cutting employees or reducing size, Stoffer is proposing the department work to focus on reducing wait times to process disability pensions and health care applications and called on the minister to allow post-Korea Forces’ personnel and RCMP members access to veterans hospitals or departmental beds.
While it would be easy to cut services because of the declining number of veterans, this should not be used as an excuse to save a few bucks because those veterans remaining will need all the help they can bet. As well, we have tens of thousands of young men and women who have served this country in man capacities over the past few decades and they should rest assured they will be cared for when they get older just as their fathers and grandfathers were looked after when they came home from a foreign battlefield.
