On Tuesday, in a replay of the biblical David-versus-Goliath legend, Dennis Manuge of Musquodoboit Harbour emerged as the winner after nearly nine years of opposing a federal government clawback of his Defence Department disability benefits.
After five years of being told no in his efforts to end the clawback, Manuge joined a group of disabled veterans in filing a class-action lawsuit against the federal government.
Earlier this year, the Federal Court brought down a decision in favour of Manuge and 4,500 other disabled veterans. And on Tuesday, Defence Minister Peter MacKay and Veterans Affairs Minister Steven Blaney announced they will not appeal.
Given the past propensity for the federal government to appeal these types of court decisions, some credit may be due to whoever argued behind closed doors on behalf of the veterans to allow the decision to stand.
Mind you, the likelihood of success on appeal appeared slim, given the strongly worded decision provided by Justice Robert Barnes earlier this month.
The former military members had received disability benefits, on top of their regular salaries, until they were dismissed from the military on pensions. But the payout for disability benefits was then clawed back as income, limiting their pension to 75 per cent of their previous income.
For seriously injured young soldiers who had returned home from missions such as Afghanistan, and who were already at the lower end of the DND pay scale, the impact was particularly punitive.
Benefits meant to provide for pain and suffering, along with necessary support services, were basically eliminated from their income as a result of the clawback.
The clawback represented a “substantial limitation to a (Canadian Forces) member’s LTD coverage, a limitation that effectively deprives the most seriously disabled CF members from recovering much, if anything, for their income losses,” Barnes said in his decision.
The decision not to proceed with an appeal is only the first step; there will now be some form of compensation negotiations required between Ottawa and the veterans whose benefits were clawed back.
While MacKay announced the clawback would end, and Blaney says his department will now work to “harmonize” benefits paid by Veterans Affairs Canada to reflect the court-ordered changes to the pension plan, it is not clear what sort of compensation will be offered to veterans who lost benefits over recent years.
Peter Driscoll, a Halifax lawyer who represented the disabled veterans in the lawsuit, has said Ottawa may be required to come up with as much as $275 million to return lost benefits.
For Manuge, Tuesday’s announcement marks the end of a battle that began for him in 2000 when he broke a bone in his back after falling three metres at CFB Petawawa.
He has served in Bosnia and competed in the army’s Ironman competition, but he was unable to recover from his back injury and was eventually given a medical discharge after a decade of service.
More than 50 complaints filed to the office of the military ombudsman a few years later led to an investigation and a report. In it, the ombudsman determined the clawback was “profoundly unfair.”
Over the next few years, thousands of retired military members joined the class action as the impact of the pension program and clawback policy began to hit home.
Still, it took the court decision earlier this week for Ottawa to end the clawback. The real test of fairness will come with the next step in the process: Determining compensation for injured military members whose disability benefits were stripped away by an uncaring government.
Original Article
Source: the chronicle herald
Author: MARILLA STEPHENSON
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