Federal government urged to respect court ruling in favour of injured veterans

O****TTAWA – Official Opposition Veterans Affairs Critic Peter Stoffer (Sackville-Eastern Shore), Deputy Critic Sylvain Chicoine (Châteauguay-Saint-Constant) and Halifax MP Megan Leslie urged the federal government today to not appeal the recent Federal Court decision on the Service Income Security Insurance Plan (SISIP) that ruled in favour of injured veterans. The federal government has until May 31st to announce its intention to appeal.

“We are asking the federal government to do the right thing and respect the court’s ruling,” said Stoffer. “Disabled veterans were forced to take legal action after the federal government refused to address the issue of unfair deductions from their disability payments. Now that the Federal Court has ruled in favour of these injured veterans, the government must put things in place to fix this injustice.”

Stoffer will also take the issue to the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs (ACVA) today. He hopes the all-party committee will pass his motion and add their support in urging the federal government not to appeal.

“The Honourable Mr. Justice Robert Barnes was very clear in his May 1st decision and said the unfair SISIP offset of Pension Act disability benefits has a harsh effect on the most seriously disabled CF veterans,” said Chicoine.

The MP’s noted that veterans’ have been fighting this issue in court since 2007 because of inaction by the federal government. The National Defence and Canadian Forces Ombudsman issued two reports urging the government to resolve this unfair reduction and in 2006, the House of Commons passed a NDP motion to end this unfair reduction of veterans’ disability pension benefits from their SISIP benefits.

“I applaud the efforts of Dennis Manuge of Nova Scotia, the lead plaintiff in this case, who had the courage to fight this unjust clawback as well as the thousands of other injured veterans who supported the class action,” said Stoffer “This issue could have been solved by the federal government a long time ago. Instead, they put veterans and their families through the wringer by forcing them to go to court.”