Family Permitted to Keep Veterans Disability Cheque

by Karl Gotthardt - albertacowpoke | September 28, 2010 at 08:30 am

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Veterans Affairs takes Veterans Disability cheque out of his daughter estate account after he dies.

Veterans Affairs decided in favour of Sergeant W.T., after he had fought for months to get a benefit for his hearing loss as an instructor on ranges, while in the military. He was awarded $55,000. The 93 year old died before the cheque arrived.

His daughter was the beneficiary and Veterans Affairs seized the money from her checquing account. It took the personal intervention of the Minister of Veterans Affairs to return the money.

The intervention only came after the Ottawa Citizen published a story on the family's plight.

The Veterans Ombudsman, retired Colonel Pat Stogran, says that this is symptomatic of a larger problem within Veterans Affairs.

Stogran has been vocal for some time on Veterans issues. Due to his efforts, the Prime Minister intervened on veterans who had Lou Gehrig's disease.

As a veteran myself, I am well aware of the bureaucracy that surrounds applications for disabilities. Having applied for disabilities, in one case, it took three appeals to get results. In most cases, the composition of the appeal board determines the outcome of the rulings.

From past experience, it is evident that Veterans Affairs Canada, almost denies all first applications.

Pat Stogran was on CBCs Power and Politics yesterday and showed concern that his personal records had been accessed some 400 times.

Stogran's biggest beef is with the bureaucrats within Veterans Affairs. It should not take the intervention of a Minister or even the Prime Minister to do the right thing.

It seems that the Government has heard Pat Stogran's message. A news story recently released by CBC indicates that the Department of Veterans Affairs Canada will assign more caseworkers to disabled veterans.

The announcement by Defence Minister Peter MacKay and Veterans Affairs Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn on Tuesday in Ottawa comes during a groundswell of criticism over how veterans are being treated when they return home from conflicts such as Afghanistan.

Many veterans have complained for years about their struggle to get benefits and deal with what they have described as the bureaucratic "maze" at the department.

The measures announced Tuesday at a total cost of $52.5 million over five years include a barrier-free transitional housing program to give severely injured vets permanent accommodations with wheelchair-accessible doors and bathrooms. Tuition benefits will be extended for injured veterans and survivors of soldiers killed in Canada's military missions after 2001.