CALGARY – The lawyer for Canadian veterans involved in a legal battle with the federal government says the Department of Veterans Affairs is playing politics with his clients.
Don Sorochan said Thursday that Minister Kent Hehr is not standing by his party’s promise in the last election to re-establish lifelong pensions for veterans.
Hehr, who was in Calgary Thursday, said his government is moving forward as quickly as it can to do that.
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The legal action was launched in B.C. Supreme Court in 2012 by six severely disabled veterans over changes made to their compensation six years earlier.
The federal government replaced lifelong pensions with lump-sum payments, upsetting veterans, who argued they deserved disability payments on par with workers’ compensation.
Efforts by the federal government to have the case thrown out were dismissed, which led to an appeal.
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