EAST HANTS: Garfield Isenor sits in his Dutch Settlement home with a package he received from Veteran Affairs Canada (VAC) containing his hearing aids.

He’s one of many traditional veterans who could be affected by the potential cuts to the department under consideration by the federal government. Those considerations have Isenor worried.

“Every little bit helps when you’re on an old-age pension,” he said.

“It would be quite a bit if they took it away from him,” said his wife, Earlene.

The 85-year-old, who served from 1943-45 with Halifax Rifle, is currently waiting to hear back for an application he put in for help with yard work, which has also taken several weeks to reach his mailbox. Isenor said he had to wait weeks for applications for his pension and hearing aids to be answered, as well.

“It took 24 weeks for me to get my pension,” he said, “and I didn’t even know I could get it until a woman at the Legion told me about it.”

Liberal and NDP critics are weighing in on the potential for cuts to VAC. Reports indicate that the Conservative government may abolish the VAC or eliminate a percentage of staff, citing a shrinking veteran population and growing number of modern day veterans.

New Democrat Veteran Affairs Critic Peter Stoffer said it’s a common problem for veterans to get caught in red tape, and 24 weeks is a typical waiting period.

“If this is an 80-year-old veteran,” he said, “he may not even have 24 minutes; we simply don’t know. If they want to streamline processes to make decisions quicker, we support that. But if you’re just laying people off because WWII and Korean veterans are dying and they think they have less work to do, we disagree with that.”

Stoffer also said the hundreds of thousands of modern-day veterans are caught in the backlog.

“Right now, it can take almost two to three years for an application for a benefit to be approved or disapproved,” he said. “That’s insane.”

VAC media relations officer Marketa Stastna released a statement addressing potential cuts to the VAC department to the Weekly Press via email.

“The VAC is going through a period of transformation,” it stated. “The number of traditional war service veterans is rapidly declining while their needs increase. At the same time, we’re serving a growing number of modern-day veterans whose needs are very different, but often intense.”

The statement from the VAC also read that the department is taking this time to address the programs and services according to changing demographics.

“By 2015, modern-day veterans will be our largest client group and will outnumber our traditional war service clients by nearly three to one. The VAC is responding to and anticipating the needs of our diverse clients.”

“Nonsense,” said Stoffer. “If they were anticipating the needs of modern-day veterans, they would allow them hospital services. But instead they say, ‘You have to provide us with this medical documentation, this appeal, this application,’ which is denied nine times out of 10.”

Stastna wrote that Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn was not available for an interview July 20 and 21. She didn’t reply to further interview requests.

“There are 400 traditional veterans dying in Canada a week,” said Liberal Veteran Affairs Critic Rob Oliphant. “They say demands on veteran affairs will diminish; I say change. If I was the minister, I would still be asking for that same resource, but I would find better ways to spend the money to serve modern-day vets.”

acano@enfieldweeklypress.com