Veterans groups are speaking out after learning more than $1 billion in funds went unspent over the past seven years, rather than being used for support and services.
The Veterans Affairs department, which is responsible for the care and benefits of military veterans, has returned a total of $1.13 billion to the treasury since the Conservatives have come into power.
The figure came out this week in the House of Commons, and has sparked criticism from veterans groups.
The Royal Canadian Legion wrote Veterans Affairs Minister Julian Fantino on Thursday, demanding a detailed accounting of which programs had lapsed funding and why.
Fantino was not in House of Commons Thursday, and his parliamentary secretary Parm Gill answered questions and stuck to the government's position. He described the lapsed funds as a "statutory" obligation and a "normal practice of all governments."
Veteran Ron Clarke doesn’t see it that way.
"They could have used that money to keep the offices open or spent in on other things for the veterans," Clarke told CTV News, laying the blame on Fantino.
"I am totally upset and frustrated with the way he is handling his budget."
Don Leonardo, a former peacekeeper and the founder of Veterans Canada community, said the money going unspent was "beyond the imagination."
"For eight years I've been trying to get the dental treatment from my pension condition completed," he said on CTV’s Power Play. "So this is really amazing to me, that now I find out that they’ve been sending money back to the treasury."
Leonardo did say the government had the power to reconcile things if they followed the new veterans charter review.
But still, he said he felt the Conservatives weren’t handling the situation fairly.
“Unfortunately, my government over the past eight years have basically gone to war against veterans,” he said. “My conversation to them is this: it’s not about left and right, it’s about right and wrong.”
Conservative MP Stella Ambler defended the handling of the budget, saying it was “patently false” that unspent money was going toward deficit reduction.
“It goes right back into Veterans Affairs for use the following year,” she said. “I also want to make it clear that not one veteran is turned away from receiving the service because of this.”
Ambler likened the unspent budget to the way employment insurance is handled in Canada. Projections for the year are made, she said, and sometimes the money spent falls short of that total.
“It’s just good budgeting practice,” she said.
But Liberal MP Adam Vaughan said veterans weren’t receiving the proper amount of care.
“There are people looking for basic human services and this government has walked away from them,” he said.
He accused the Conservative government of fighting veterans in court instead of using their available funds to help them.
“It’s all well and fine to trot them out at a hockey game and clap and wrap yourselves in the maple leaf when you want to make a point about the military,” he said. “But when it comes time to being decent to Canadians who are in need, this government has money on the table that they can spend.”
