Canada's veterans fight a second war at home

With allegations of obstruction and invasion of privacy, Veterans Affairs Canada seems often to be fighting the people it's supposed to be helping.

Just what exactly is going on over at Veterans Affairs these days? A month after Veterans Ombudsman Pat Stogran called out the VA bureaucracy for obstructing soldiers’ access to benefits comes news that officials the department accessed the private records of Sean Bruyea, a Gulf War veteran and outspoken critic the government’s veteran’s charter. Officials attempted to use his private information to discredit him.

Veterans aren’t the only ones who should be shocked by this invasion of privacy, writes Bruyea in a special column for the Ottawa Citizen. “This also needs to be the concern of every Canadian, and especially all parliamentarians.” Bruyea wants a full public inquiry from Parliament. “I went to war to defend Canada's sacred values and rights such as freedom of expression,” he writes. “Why is it that the government can use my most sacred information to destroy my credibility, thereby denying me that same freedom(?)”

“The biggest threat to the security of Canadians' personal information … isn't from computer hackers,” according to an editorial in the Saskatoon Starphoenix, “but from those within the bureaucracy.” Unfortunately, cases like this will continue to occur “until governments begin to treat these grievous abuses as among the most serious crimes that public officials can commit against citizens, instead of merely fobbing them off as matters to be negotiated via privacy officials.”

With government-veteran relations seemingly at a low point, the Halifax Chronicle Herald’s Scott Taylor says “It will be the long-term public sentiment towards our experience in Afghanistan that defines the size of the hurdle the veterans will have to manage.” Because the definition of success in Afghanistan is vague, and a decisive victory is impossible by the time Canadians withdraw in 2011, “this will be the first time in our fledgling nation’s martial history that our soldiers have not been greeted by a well-deserved victory parade,” writes Taylor. This should not affect our view of veterans however, as “there can be no shame in failing to achieve a victory that has yet to be defined.”