Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Sunday, November 30, 2014

Want to make amends with vets? Start by firing Fantino

There are bullying, disingenuous, condescending windbags … and then there’s Julian Fantino.

This is the minister who yelled at octogenarian veterans in front of the cameras, offered a fake apology for his rudeness after standing them up — and then insulted them again the next day by calling them union dupes. (Still better than a fake apology.)

This is the minister who manfully ran away from the wife of a suffering veteran rather than deal with her SOS. Equipped with the personality of a bar bouncer on a short fuse, Fantino has bellyflopped in every job Stephen Harper has given him. He is the last person who should be dealing with war-damaged veterans. A cattle prod — not the English language — is his preferred instrument of persuasion. Canadian veterans don’t take kindly to cattle prods.

If Stephen Harper wanted to mend fences with Canadian veterans he should have started the process by firing Fantino … a long time ago. And not just because of the shameful public episodes in which this hapless minister has been involved.

Consider Fantino’s failure to stand up for his clients. I’m not talking about the guys in the PMO who wanted an early balanced budget for purely political reasons. I’m talking about the ones who took the perilous journey to war and back again to civilian life, dragging a scorpion’s tail of unbearable memories and scarring experiences behind them.

Fantino’s job is to use his department’s budget to benefit veterans; it’s not to return an unspent $1.13 billion in appropriated funds to the treasury. Fantino claims it is “not lost money”. It was certainly lost to the people it was intended for: ex-soldiers in need. Just a little bit of it — $3.8 million, to be exact — would have been enough to keep open those nine veterans centres the Harper government shuttered across the country.

None of this has stopped Harper from doing what he does best: rubbing the public’s nose in the fact that he has the power to do whatever he likes, from appointing a judge with zero experience to the Supreme Court to stinting veterans. How else could he have tapped Fantino, of all people, to make the announcement on new funding for mental health services for veterans? The guy hasn’t given a hoot about this problem for as long as taxpayers have been flying him to Italy.

Getting the news of the $200 million mental health initiative from Fantino wasn’t just insulting — it was classic Harper media control. The announcement was made on a Sunday, when opposition critics and veterans’ advocates were largely unavailable. The benefit to that strategy is that the story came out just the way the Harper government likes it — without contradiction, criticism or analysis.

Fantino, meanwhile, blew town after making the announcement — so he was far away when the fertilizer hit the fan over what had actually been announced. Government already pays for mental health services in areas where the new clinics will be located — so is this new money or a PR charade? The public won’t soon find out from Fantino. Off to Italy on official duties, you see.

If only this guy cared as much about men as monuments.

There was another, obvious factor behind the announcement’s timing, of course. Coming as it did the day before Auditor General Michael Ferguson lowered the boom on Fantino’s department, the announcement offered the idea (to some) that this is a caring, compassionate government. Whatever Ferguson might say the next day, the public would be left with the impression — that all-important first impression — that Harper was already on it.

And nothing could be further from the truth. The Harper government is in court right now fighting veterans who want to reverse the more egregious shortcomings of the New Veterans Charter. The truth, as it was laid out in Ferguson’s report, is not pretty. The Department of Veterans Affairs ran veterans through a bureaucratic steeplechase towards … nothing. According to the AG, it could not even measure performance outcomes on its own programs to troubled veterans — so it had no idea if any of them were working.

The process veterans have to go through to apply for mental health benefits would baffle Stephen Hawking. People desperate for help have to jump through hoops for eight months before finding out if they even qualify for assistance. Since the day Harper came to power up to the present, more than 3,000 applicants have been turned down.

The Auditor General found that some veterans waited as long as three years to navigate this byzantine obstacle course. I spoke with the wife of one vet who told me that after her husband tried to commit suicide, she went face-to-face with authorities and begged for help. They talked about a six-week wait and, after that, a lot of pills — pills that turned him into a zombie. In the end, she too sought mental health support. I wonder if the authorities grasp what that means, this type of desperate need?

Stephen Harper has made a political career out of marketing good intentions as deeds. Since none of the clinics mentioned in the government’s announcement will open until the autumn of 2015, there is no new help for veterans at this moment. What we have here is an election promise that may or may not be honoured. That’s of no use to veterans and their families who need help now. As Mr. Harper himself might put it, it is an inducement of sorts.

It should be noted that there are no new initiatives in Fantino’s announcement. Here is how veterans advocate Sean Bruyea put it to me:

    For those who are suffering and struggling, one of the first things a veteran will tell you, fine, one appointment for one hour per week. What do I do for the remaining 167 hours? What do I do at 3:00 a.m. when my world shatters in a barrage of terror, drunkenness, anxiety overload or plain self-loathing? Who will be with me today as I try to re-make my life? I gave 24 hours a day every day for 10, 15, 20 or 25 years and all I get is one hour per week from some newbie certified 20-something psychologist who doesn’t know the difference between a corporal and a tank? None of these new clinics can accommodate drop-ins … I guess that means veterans will have to book their panic attacks, suicidal ideations and substance abuse ahead of time.

Care to answer, Mr. Minister?

Original Article
Source: ipolitics.ca/
Author:  Michael Harris

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