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Pressed by another NDP MP, Nicholson went further but didn’t give his opinion on universality of service.

“No member of the armed forces is let go until they are ready to move on,” he explained. “This is why our service and the level of care that is provided by our armed forces is unprecedented. This is why this has continued to be a priority for our government. We want to reach out to those men and women in uniform and give them all the help they need.”

Here is some more background material on this issue that I ran on Defence Watch on Oct. 14:

Almost a year after facing a barrage of bad publicity, National Defence is having another look at a policy that ended the careers of gravely injured soldiers who wanted to remain in uniform, Murray Brewster of the Canadian Press is reporting.

More from his article:

Defence Minister Rob Nicholson has told a House of Commons committee that a working group was set up last summer to study the military’s universality of service rule, which has been used as a pretext to release wounded combat veterans, many of them with post-traumatic stress.

At stake is the delicate balance between an individual’s desire to serve and the need for troops to be fit enough to deploy for operations both at home and abroad, Nicholson said in a seven-page letter to Commons defence committee.

“This working group is examining how the policy can be best applied to retain individuals who are willing and able to serve, while also ensuring the necessary availability of all Canadian Armed Forces personnel to perform their lawful military service,” he said.