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You have to be pretty tone-deaf to tell a man who lost a leg in Afghanistan that the government is fighting veterans groups in courts “because they’re asking for more than we’re able to give right now.”

Yet that’s exactly what the prime minister did at a town-hall in Edmonton last Thursday — a gaffe that has gone viral on social media and infuriated veterans.

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Brock Blaszczyk stood to ask Justin Trudeau a question, with his prosthetic leg and medals in clear view. He was a corporal in the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, who lost a leg to a road-side bomb in Afghanistan in 2009.

He asked Trudeau why his government is fighting a legal battle with veterans (the Equitas class-action lawsuit), even though the Liberal election platform said “no veteran will be forced to fight their own government for the support and compensation they have earned.”

Further, he complained he was not eligible for the new lifetime pension option, yet the Liberals have found money to pay for the re-integration of ISIL fighters and the $10.5-million compensation payment for Omar Khadr.

“What veterans are you talking about — those fighting for the freedoms and values you so proudly boast about, or those fighting against?” he said. “I was prepared to be killed in action. What I wasn’t prepared for, Mr. Prime Minister, was Canada turning its back on me.”