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The Liberals were the only party that campaigned on a promise to bring back disability pensions for injured veterans after they were abolished in 2006 and replaced with a controversial new system that included lump-sum payments. The pledge was a centrepiece of their effort to court veteran voters.

Tuesday’s budget instead boosted the amount injured veterans can receive through those lump-sum payments. The increases will be retroactive for about 70,000 veterans who have been given such a payment since 2006.

The government will also make it easier for some severely injured veterans to receive long-term benefits, and increase the amount others receive while searching for work after they leave the military. Those two measures are expected to benefit about 20,000 injured veterans this year.

The increased lump sums, expanded benefits and other measures will assuage many veterans, others will be upset and even angry the Liberals didn’t bring back the pensions. The government also faces the risk of being painted with the same brush as the Conservatives when it comes to veterans.

Some critics, including the Conservatives and NDP, had previously accused the Liberals of promising to re-introduce the disability pensions simply to win votes. They had warned that such a move would be prohibitively expensive, and that the new system was more responsive to the needs of today’s veterans.

“There’s fiscal realities to some of these things that have to be addressed,” former veterans affairs minister and current Conservative MP Erin O’Toole told the Ottawa Citizen last month in response to the Liberals’ promise.