An open letter to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defence;
The Canadian military says an error at the Department of National Defence resulted in tens of millions of dollars worth of benefit payments paid to up to 7,000 service members over the last five years.
The benefits include the Defence Department’s use of taxpayer dollars to bring families of fallen soldiers killed in Afghanistan to repatriation ceremonies, which did not receive proper approval from the Treasury Board.
The DND payments will be cut off at midnight Tuesday while the military reviews the benefit assessments and payment process, said Vice-Admiral Bruce Donaldson, vice-chief of the defence staff.
Read the entire article on the CBC website here.
You, Stephen Harper and Peter MacKay, have publicly derided opposition MP’s as well as public servants for not supporting our Canadian Armed Forces. You favour photo op’s featuring a backdrop of soldiers and our flag, when you are not posing beside F-35′s in psuedo military gear. You spend billions of taxpayer dollars on untendered contracts for equipment we don’t need, even as other countries back out of the scam, making the potential debt even worse. You stretch our military so thin, fighting wars we have no business being in.
If you want to save money, look to your own offices. The PMO staffing level and budget could use some trimming. Scrap the F-35′s. Raise the Corporate tax rate. End subsidies to Oil and Gas. Refine your dirty oil at home in Alberta, instead of inflicting it on other jurisdictions via pipeline and tankers or rail.
A long time ago, I was stationed at Canadian Forces Research Station Suffield with my husband. Our son was a baby. At the end of November, the pay office found an error they had made in accounting. Without notice, his pay was reduced to $150.00. They refused to spread the payments out, insisting on taking it all in one paycheque, right before Christmas. That is exactly what this decision reminds me of. Actually, funny story, the following spring, CE (construction engineering, for the uninitiated) decided to renovate our fully functional bathroom. In their wisdom, they decided to rig us a temporary shower in the basement, over the drain. Then the sewer line backed up, throughout the basement. I’m talking raw sewage. So I phoned CE and asked them to come out and fix the problem. They didn’t think they had the manpower. Since my husband was a cook, I phoned the Chief Cook and then I phoned the base doctor. I figured that a cook has the right, no, the obligation to take a daily shower. And not to live over an open cellpool. Since that can cause a public health hazard. After the phonecalls were made, CE was over in a New York minute. The following week, my husband was paraded before the Base Commander and told to keep his wife in check. Another life lesson. Shit flows downhill.
My baby son grew up and joined the military. He was home on leave recently from Afghanistan, to assist his pregnant fiance with her move, to take a deep breath of our precious Canadian air before embarking on the second half of his tour of duty. If I find that his travel claim is frozen and his pay is affected, I am going to be very disappointed in you. I’m already very disappointed in you, I won’t lie, but until I see you sending your children off to fight wars in distant lands, or attending to it yourselves, I will expect you to conduct yourselves with Statesmanship and Diplomacy. That seems a lofty goal, I know, but if you are going to talk the talk, then man up and walk the walk. Assholes.
Sincerely,
Kim Poirier