OTTAWA—Wounded and injured soldiers have launched a class-action lawsuit against the federal government, charging that they’ve been shortchanged compensation for their often horrific and life-changing injuries.

The lawsuit takes aim at the controversial lump sum payments paid to wounded soldiers by Veterans Affairs Canada, saying it’s not enough to ensure they can move on with their lives.

Among those named in the lawsuit filed Tuesday are Dan Scott, badly injured in a training accident in Afghanistan, and Mark Campbell, who lost both legs in a roadside blast and was profiled in a Star series about wounded soldiers.

But the legal action could grow to include “hundreds” of other wounded and injured soldiers, said Donald Sorochan, a senior partner with the Vancouver office of Miller Thomson, the law firm that is handling the case pro bono.

The lawsuit notes that between 2002 and 2011, more than 2,000 soldiers suffered injuries in Afghanistan.

Canadian soldiers make an “extraordinary personal commitment” to risk their life, the lawsuit says. In return, it claims there’s an implicit promise that the country will look after them if they suffer injuries resulting from their military service.

But that vow is being shattered by the treatment of veterans today, Sorochan said.

“We, the people, made this promise. The problem is that our bureaucrats aren’t keeping it. And they aren’t keeping it because they don’t think they have to,” he said in an interview from his Vancouver office Tuesday.

“We’re arguing on several constitutional grounds that they have to.”

The 55-page lawsuit quotes from former prime minister Robert Borden, who promised troops getting ready for the battle of Vimy Ridge in 1917 that they would be looked after.

It traces the evolution of veterans benefits since then and details the injuries and compensation given to modern-day soldiers for their injuries.

For example, Scott was given a lump-sum payment of $41,411 for his injuries, which included the loss of a kidney, spleen and part of his pancreas.

Another soldier, Brad Quast, suffered injuries to his right leg in a 2009 roadside blast that killed four colleagues and a Canadian journalist. He was awarded $55,215 from Veterans Affairs.

In each of the cases, the lawsuit argues the payouts are an “inadequate reflection” of the pain and suffering and fail to account for loss of future income since the injuries have hindered the search by the wounded soldiers for civilian work.

The lawsuit argues that the financial benefits paid to wounded soldiers are “substantially less” than the damages they could expect to receive through the courts if they’d suffered similar injuries in civilian life.

And it charges that the New Veterans Charter has left severely disabled soldiers with 30 per cent less than before the benefits overhaul took effect.

It paints a sobering picture of wounded soldiers, saying they’ve been forced out of the military, are unable to find other work, and are left with a compensation package “insufficient to maintain a normal lifestyle.”

Sorochan condemned the process as “unbelievably bureaucratic and arbitrary.

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“If anything, the people who do this for us should have an enhanced recovery, not a diminished recovery,” he said.

The lawsuit comes just a week after Auditor General Michael Ferguson complained that injured soldiers face a blizzard of confusing paperwork and bureaucratic delays in getting the help they need to make the move back to civilian life.

On Tuesday, Veterans Affairs Minister Steven Blaney announced to “transition action plan” to help smooth the switch to civilian life.

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