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When a veteran wants to fill out disability and pension forms, it can sometimes involve multiple applications to several bodies, including insurance companies, even for permanent injuries like Franklin’s.

He said veterans should deal only with Veterans Affairs and the process should be far more simple. If medical status has changed, he said, a doctor’s note should suffice. If it hasn’t, no forms should be needed, he said.

“It’s been 10 years and they still haven’t figured out I’m an amputee,” he said. “It’s more for the dudes that can’t do it … I don’t want this to be a hindrance to someone getting the care they need.”

Franklin said veterans should deal only with Veterans Affairs and the process should be far more simple.”

Franklin’s story of his journey inside the federal government’s paperwork jungle first gained prominence a little more than a year ago when he went public with this same issue.

The Conservative government responded immediately it would deal with the problem. They didn’t. Veterans Affairs promised action. It didn’t deliver.

Now Franklin is back, trying to highlight the issue, not for himself, but for other veterans. In the last week, besides the Edmonton Journal, this issue has been covered by Global TV, the Huffington Post, CTV and numerous other publications.

Will things change? It doesn’t look like it. Last night CTV News reported the Liberals were defending the policy.

According to Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, the form is a generic one needed “for making sure we can provide the right service and that we can continually assess, because things may change for other veterans as well.”

(CTV originally reported that Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Jon Vance also defended the questionnaire in a recent parliamentary committee meeting, calling it “un-intrusive” and “caring”. But I’m told that wasn’t the case. It was Veterans Affairs Deputy Minister Walter Natynczyk who said that)