Canada’s veterans will have to live another 50 years to see the full benefit of $200 million in spending on their mental health, not five or six years as initially thought.
The government came under fire Friday amid reports that the bulk of $200 million it had earmarked for mental health would actually be doled out over half a century.
According to a report in the Globe and Mail, the Conservatives will only spend $18.1 million on veterans in the short term, while $132.1 million will be added to the Veterans Affairs budget over the next half-century to support future expenses for Operational Stress Injury (OSI) clinics.
The remaining money from the $200 million will be spent on other veterans’ health initiatives.
Conservative MP Scott Armstrong defended the announcement on CTV’s Power Play Friday, saying the remainder of the money will be spent to support the “full lifecycle cost” of the clinics.
“We want to make sure we have the budgetary capacity in place to deal with the projected cost of these operational stress clinics going forward,” Armstrong said.
When asked why the government did not mention the 50-year term at last Sunday’s press conference to announce the funding, Anderson said there were “four or five different programs announced on the same day.”
The original $200 million funding announcement came just days after it was revealed that more than $1 billion allocated for Veterans Affairs was returned to the government unspent. It also came ahead of a scathing auditor general’s report released Tuesday, detailing a number of problems with the application process veterans face to access long-term healthcare benefits.
The auditor general’s report found that Canadian veterans face an overly complex process to apply for long-term healthcare benefits, and often have to wait up to eight months to find out if they are eligible for those benefits.
Don Leonardo of Veterans Canada says military vets need help as soon as possible, to help stem the rising tide of mental health issues among their ranks. He points out that more military veterans have now died by suicide than in combat during the Afghan War.
“When we have a crisis like this, you would expect the money to go to mental health right now, and not 40 years from now,” he told Power Play.
Canadian Veterans Advocacy Director Jerry Kovacs says he felt “hoodwinked, amazed, shocked” to learn of the 50-year term in Sunday’s announcement.
“There was no indication of that when they announced it last Sunday morning,” Kovacs told CTV News. “They are throwing this together at the last minute, trying to engage in damage control, scrambling.”
Liberal MP and veterans affairs critic Frank Valeriote accused the government of being misleading and deceptive with its original announcement.
“Everyone thought it was $200 million immediately forthcoming over the next five to six years,” Valeriote said.
He added that the veterans he’s spoken to feel “hoodwinked and let down” by the extended funding timetable.
“Their needs are immediate,” Valeriote said.
The Conservatives also came under fire during question period in the House of Commons Friday.
“Conservatives misled the House, they misled the public and they misled veterans,” New Democrat MP Libby Davis said in the House of Commons. “Why will the Conservatives not own up to their own mistakes, and be honest with Canada’s veterans?”
NDP MP David Christopherson accused the Tories of trying to “paper over their failure to support our veterans” instead of addressing their longstanding issues.
“Apparently the minister (Julian Fantino) thinks it is OK to take 50 years to fix the problem,” he said in the House of Commons.
“The Veterans Affairs Minister hasn’t answered a question all week. Not one,” Liberal MP John McCallum said.
Veterans Affairs Minister Julian Fantino had been scheduled to speak at a conference on veterans’ health in Toronto on Tuesday. But he changed his plans ahead of the auditor general’s report, and instead flew overseas to visit Italy for the 70th anniversary of Canada’s participation in the Second World War in that country. He remained there on Friday.
Veterans Affairs Canada announced the details of the OSI clinics in a news release issued Friday. The release makes no mention of a 50-year term.
“The Government will invest $150.2 million in a new operational stress injury clinic, which is slated to open in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in the fall of 2015,” the release says. “There will be an immediate investment of $18.1 million and the remainder will be provided over the life of the program.”
With files from the Canadian Press
