My name is Mike Cue and in March 2013, I was medically retired (due to injuries I suffered in service to my country) from the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), after serving 34 1/2 years in your/my country’s military.
During my career, I had both high and low points, but I always believed (naively) that my government would keep its basic promise to look after me (and my fellow soldiers), if/when we became injured.
Then in 2006, my government decided to switch to awarding “Lump Sum Medical Payments” to wounded soldiers, versus the then "Pensions For Life".
At the time I was all for this, as I believed that: Canada’s older veterans (vets) (70+) deserved some monies, to ease them in their senior years; and that this new policy would not affect us younger vets. How wrong I was.
Now, I am not going to rehash this policy, but what I want to discuss is how, before the last federal election (then) Mr. Trudeau stated how he would bring back vets’ medical pensions (as this pension scheme was before 2006 ... i.e., medical pensions) for life (and thus I voted for PM Trudeau).
I believed at the time that no politician would go back on his word to veterans, as vets are a proud and loyal symbol of Canada. However, this (I feel) is exactly what Trudeau did, and the prime minister even stated (after he was elected, and I am paraphrasing here) that he would not be looking into vets’ medical pensions until his second term in office (as this issue was/is just too complicated).
So if I understand PM Trudeau’s reasoning right, my federal government cannot do two things at once. What a load of false and moronic reasoning (and these are the more polite words for this type of reasoning I can put forth).
Now this soldier (me) actually came up with (in under 20 minutes) four unique ways that PM Trudeau could bring back to us soldiers medical pensions for life (it’s not that hard to do, and only requires political will).
However, there is (I believe) no will nor backbone in PM Trudeau.
The overall “funny” thing" about this issue (for me) is the consequences for the Liberal party and PM Trudeau.
If PM Trudeau had kept his word (his honour), I would have hazarded a guess that the majority of veterans, wounded veterans, and the families of said wounded and dead veterans, would have (probably) voted for him in the upcoming federal election (but, not now).
Every vet (and their respective families) I have talked with lately can hardly wait for the federal election to take place, so that we can vote (Conservative, as this party is the only one that currently “seems” to care for us wounded vets).
The only galling thing about kicking PM Trudeau out of power is that he will still get a “golden” pension, while us vets continue to fight with Veteran Affairs to just get pennies.
In summation, this is but one of the military issues I have with Trudeau and Veteran Affairs, while the other issues being: (1) Soldiers ordered/forced (under threat of courts martial) to take the anti-malarial drug mefloquine, and (2) how (to this date) the federal government has still not acknowledged and compensated your Canadian soldiers for being exposed to Agents Orange, White and Purple (when they were tested in Canada, for the Vietnam War).
Thank you for listening to this soldier’s rants. Thoughts?
Mike Cue, Morinville
