When I heard the news that Julian Fantino had met with a group of veterans in an apparent effort to rebuild all those bridges he has blown up in the last few years, I was suitably impressed.
Until I found out the meeting was at the Citadel in Quebec City, not Ottawa as is usually the case. So he could get as far away from the Parliamentary media as possible, short of heading for Tuktoyaktuk.
Or Stephen Harper’s closet.
And that veterans who weren’t prepared to join the choir and sing along with him, weren’t invited.
When Veterans Affairs Minister Julian Fantino sits down with several veterans organizations in Quebec City’s historic Citadel on Wednesday, there will be some groups on the outside looking in.
Fantino’s department has snubbed groups who’ve loudly criticized the Conservatives’ implementation of the contentious New Veterans’ Charter, freezing them out of an annual stakeholders’ meeting, which they’d previously attended.
They had been frozen out by Fantino and his flunkies, AND the Royal Canadian Legion.
“What’s interesting is the same groups that aren’t invited to the legion one are the same ones that aren’t invited to the minister’s one, which shows a degree of collusion between the legion dominion command and the minister’s office, which is disturbing to say the least,” said retired air force captain Sean Bruyea, a blogger and veterans’ advocate.
Which as I pointed out yesterday, is also known by some these days as the Royal CONadian Legion.
But if the Great Fantini was hoping this cozy meeting would help rebuild bridges or repair his tattered image he was sadly mistaken.
For no sooner had the meeting ended than he was hit by this Con seeking missile.
Veterans Affairs Canada has returned $1.13 billion to the federal treasury in unspent funds since the Conservatives came to power in 2006 — cash that critics say should have gone towards improved benefits and services.
Can you believe it? While veterans suffered, and soldiers suffering from PTSD killed themselves…
Those grubby Cons have been balancing the budget on their backs.
So they can use that stash of cash to BRIBE voters.
“The deputy ministers … have obviously been told by the higher-ups that, ‘This money has to come back to us in order for us to have our books balanced, and that way we can use that money for other purposes, like income-splitting.”‘
And try to BUY the next election.
Is that classy or what?
Is THAT what our soldiers died for on the beaches of Normandy?
And all I can say is so much for rebuilding those blown up bridges. So much for Julie’s new image…
And so much for Stephen Harper, our would be Great Warrior Leader.
We shall use all of this against them in the next election.
And as the Royal Conadian Choir sings “Hark the Harper Angels Sing.”
They’ll all go down together…
Remembering a Solider
Greg Matters a 15-year veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces, was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) when he was killed after a 30-hour standoff with the RCMP’s Emergency Response Team (ERT) on the farm adjacent to the home where he was living – See more at: http://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/news/local-news/why-was-it-necessary-1.1036103#sthash.nGY4TJI2.dpuf
They used Greg to practice paramilitary police tactics on that’s why Greg is dead they murder him, one solider left to die alone.
They even pushed backed his Mother when she tried to make it to his side.
I believe Fantino is a distant relative of Mussolini, the son of bitch will be the death of us all. I keep forgetting that this is the outcome, (death), that would be in the best interest of VA,s, Fantino, and that idiot I voted for some years ago! Please forgive me for that vote!
Chimo.
Shawn, Does this mean that you are now adopting A_B_C
Just when you think that feeble excuse for a priminister can stoop no lower he pulls this off Fantino is acting out of some misguided idea of loyalty saying look how much i have saved in my budget by driving 160 vets to suicide. Did i do good Boss?Hey here is an idea Why don’t we hit there widows and orphans as well.,Anything we can do to up the tax breaks to the upper crust that have never picked up a rifle in defence of there country..Just hope we don’t require them for anything but votes.
I have a big problem with the RCL being a stakeholder, when they are also a benefactor to be with the NVC. The fact that they have service contracts on their plate, that veterans have been used as meal tickets to fill that plate. When an organization is both an advocate and a recipient of monetary gain, as is the case with the RCL and the contracts they were promised to provide services through branches. This in legal terms is a conflict of interest, or a pecuniary interest and they are by rubber stamping the NVC I think crossing the line into tortuous interference with contracts, particularly the previous pension and benefit system. When RCL Command puts its own interests ahead of veterans it is a shame on them and every Legion member who allows it. Let us not mention the Legion which accepted the resignation of its chaplain, deferring to the local Con MP and his bruised ego, that politics come into play is disgraceful .I agree they will all go down together, today’s vets have better things to do than sit in a bar, in fact we know its the last place many of us should be.