Budget bill ‘unfair’ for dismissing decades of overcharging veterans: watchdog

Minister of Veterans Affairs Jill McKnight rises during question period on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

OTTAWA — Canada’s veterans’ watchdog is calling on MPs to remove a provision in the federal budget bill she said will paper over a technical mistake that led to veterans in long-term care being overcharged for decades.

Retired colonel Nishika Jardine, the federal veterans ombud, told a House of Commons committee Thursday the government is trying to retroactively fix its decades-old error through a provision buried deep in its budget implementation bill — but it will still deny veterans compensation.

She said Veterans Affairs Canada is doing unnecessary damage to its reputation and will deepen mistrust among veterans by not owning up to a simple error.

“It’s a small thing. Just say we made a mistake. Correct the mistake. Make it clear going forward, absolutely. But don’t wipe out thirty years of having made that mistake and just pretend it never happened,” she told the House of Commons finance committee on Thursday.

She said Ottawa has for years improperly calculated the maximum amount a veteran in long-term care must pay for meals and accommodations, an error that likely affected thousands of veterans.

The payments are calculated using the cheapest rates for room and board in the least-expensive province. Jardine said Veterans Affairs should not have excluded the territories from its formula for decades at the expense of elderly and disabled veterans.

The budget bill would retroactively exclude the territories from its payment formula going back to 1998.

“Making it retroactive for more than 30 years is not only unprecedented but also patently unfair,” Jardine said.

She said veterans identified the error themselves and have launched a class-action lawsuit to seek reimbursement.

Conservative MP Pat Kelly accused the government on Thursday of putting these provisions in the budget bill to give Ottawa “legal cover for failing to compensate veterans in the past.”

Veterans Affairs Minister Jill McKnight said Thursday the changes are meant to “clarify how benefits have been calculated” and will not affect future benefits.

Jardine wrote to the minister in December calling for the government to amend the provisions. She said Thursday she has not yet received a response.

“If these sections are permitted to stand and Bill C-15 is passed, government will have effectively legitimized its past overcharges to veterans and, as it happens, denied justice to some of our elderly and most disabled veterans,” Jardine told the committee.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 5, 2026.

Kyle Duggan, The Canadian Press