#fallenathome
New hazard allowance for Canadian Armed Forces members deployed on COVID-19 frontlines.
A policy announcement has been made regarding the granting of exceptional duty hazard pay to the Canadian Forces soldiers deployed to many of our largest provinces long term care facilities. Including our own former Veterans Hospital, the last of 18 that were shut down since I joined the RCAF in 1986 before it was restored to that name.
Our own revered and respected Lt. Wolf Wm Solkin, WWII veteran extraordinaire, who along with his intrepid cohorts in Ste. Anne’s Hospital and other former federal veterans hospitals, have suffered badly since falling into the under-funded and confused management of local health authorities at Ste. Anne’s in Montreal. He and his colleagues are particularly vulnerable, captive in the centre of Canada’s worst pandemic outbreak.
As for this hazard pay gesture; it is a pat on the head once again. It doesn’t do a thing to help fight their future lifetime of insurance battles with Veterans Affairs and Manulife Financial Corporation if a single one of them gets infected and sick as a direct result of their military duties and recovers only to be left with any number of emerging post-Covid disabilities. Not everyone recovers and we are again intentionally creating wounded veterans for the greater good we all volunteer to serve – until we become disability liabilities.
Then it’s off to the insurance company gulag for you. Go find a doctor. One who loves extra paperwork there will be a lot of it. All the time. Over and over. Your new boss. A social worker, the insurance industry and the government of Canada once again but this time on poverty wages and no respect. For life until you die early. Or kill yourself.
They never admit wrong at Veterans Affairs. They never make amends. They cover up, they take and then they hide behind the legislation and regulations they write themselves.
So $78/day is fine if no one gets hurt. For the one or two who fall for life. Not so good.
The Advocate-Equalizer 
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