Liberal leader Justin Trudeau will make a sweeping policy announcement Monday that will dramatically alter the landscape on one of the most emotional issues in the country – the plight of Canada’s war veterans.

iPolitics has learned that the announcement, to be made in Belleville, Ontario, will include a major improvement to the controversial New Veterans Charter. While the Liberals were refusing to offer details, people briefed on the announcement said it will also address a range of other policies of the current Conservative government that have alienated veterans and their families.

Trudeau will announce that if Liberals form a government, one of those changes will deal with restoring lifelong, tax-free pensions to disabled veterans to replace the one-time, lump-sum payments implemented by the Conservatives. Those single payments, which average approximately $45,000, have been at the heart of a bitter battle between veterans’ groups and the Harper government. Some veterans have compared the one-time only payments from the government to an insurance company “trying to get rid of a troublesome claim.”

A source told iPolitics that there would be no more “chump sum” payments to wounded veterans under the Trudeau plan, and that the Liberal policy would “completely restore the sacred obligation” to Canada’s veterans.

In preparing the challenge the Conservatives over veterans, Trudeau leaned heavily on the special expertise of former General, and now Liberal candidate, Andrew Leslie, and former Senator Romeo Dallaire, to produce the Liberal platform on veterans. Romeo Dallaire has consistently advocated for those veterans suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

In addition to changes to the veterans’ charter, Trudeau will invest $100 million in services to veterans, including the creation of two centres of excellence, one on the East Coast and the other on the West Coast. One of these centres will deal with general veterans’ issues; the other will be dedicated to mental health treatment for veterans suffering from conditions like post traumatic stress disorder, (PTSD).

The Harper government has been widely criticized for its failure to offer adequate mental health treatment to soldiers suffering from PTSD. It was also bitterly condemned for breaching the privacy of wounded veterans like Dennis Manuge and Sean Bruyea, whose medical records were improperly accessed by the Harper government’s political staff.

The government was also roundly criticized by veterans advocates like Sean Bruyea for trying to force wounded soldiers to sign a form agreeing not to criticize the military or senior officers – which included any mention of the poor treatment received by some of those suffering from PTSD.

One of the most dramatic changes set to be announced tomorrow is that the Liberals will make payments to wounded veterans retroactive. If they were wounded in 2006, they will be fully funded by the federal government back to the date of their injury under the terms of Trudeau’s proposals for reform of the NVC.

One of the most important changes will be Trudeau’s promise to increase the amount of the Earnings Lost Benefit from 75 to 90 per cent, as well as to increase the award for pain and suffering.

In addition, the Liberals are pledging to either re-open or re-staff the nine Veterans Affairs Centres closed by Prime Minister Harper as part of his austerity drive to balance the budget. Trudeau is expected to either re-open or re-staff these facilities if he becomes prime minister.

In February 2014, both prime minister Harper and his veterans affairs minister Julian Fantino voted against a motion by the New Democrat opposition to keep the veterans centre open. The debate was particularly emotional because of a string of tragic suicides in the military.

It was the closure of these offices that led to the disastrous public affairs blunder featuring former Veterans Affairs minister Fantino and a group of veterans who came to Ottawa to ask the minister to reconsider the closures.

Fantino kept the veterans waiting for over an hour and then chastised some of them for being rude to him. The next day he apologized, but then compounded his problem by accusing the veterans of being “dupes” of the union.

A group of veterans from the Afghanistan War (40,000 Canadians served in that conflict) have claimed in British Columbia court that Ottawa has a “social contract” to extend care to the wounded as once promised by Prime Minister Robert Borden during the World War One.

At the government’s urging, federal lawyers to argue that Borden’s promise was just “words” from a politician whose promise is not binding on the current government and denied any formal “social contract” obliging Ottawa to care for veterans in the manner envisaged by Prime Minister Borden.

Veterans have countered that the care of wounded personnel coming back from war, and their compensation for pain and suffering, should never be dealt with by reference to the Workmen’s Compensation model, which would equate their situation with someone injured on a job site in Ontario.