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There is little excuse for delay for most other promises. It costs little to “end the time limit for surviving spouses to apply for vocational rehabilitation and assistance services.” Some cost more but are straightforward such as “increase the veteran survivor’s pension from 50 to 70 per cent.”

Considering just more than 53,000 “survivors” currently collect pensions and approximately 3,000 sadly pass away each year, time is of the essence.

Expect bureaucratic muddling and manipulation on the rest.

Whenever a recommendation allows wiggle room, bureaucrats have addressed the bare minimum or a minor aspect of the recommendation. They then claimed the recommendation was addressed.

VAC mandarins have long resisted guaranteed response and processing times. Hence, the Liberal promise to “deliver a higher standard of service and care” will likely result in some meaningless internal performance marker.

Like most of Canada’s federal departments, suffering little or no consequences for failure even when it causes real harm to Canadians is what many senior bureaucrats, especially those isolated in VAC’s Charlottetown head office, consider “public service.”

What about Justin Trudeau’s promise of returning to lifelong monthly tax-free payments for the pain and suffering of lifelong disabling injuries? VAC bureaucrats have already duped many in and outside advisory groups to reject the lifelong pension promise. Instead, bureaucratic handlers are feeding misleading information to the groups to accept one-time lump sums as compensation for a lifetime of anguish. Bureaucrats use such specious arguments as “the bureaucratic process takes too much time to change big things in a single mandate” or “there’s not enough money in the till.” In the case of veterans’ programs, both are grossly deceptive.