In fact, a recent poll already shows that the lead they had built up recently has now evaporated again and they are falling back to the same position they were in at the end of the last election. The fact that this poll was taken before the recent revelations that the government had been lying about what they knew and didn't know about the treatment of prisoners of war that Canada was turning over to Afghanistan security forces might mean they are even worse off than this poll shows.
But what could hurt them even more than those revelations are the reports starting to come out of the office of the armed forces ombudsman on the treatment of soldiers' families by the Department of Defence. Although the two investigations that Yves Côté, military ombudsman currently reported on could be laid at the feet of previous governments as they date back to 2002 and 2005 respectively, the current folk won't be able to dodge it completely as some of the problems reported on are more recent.
What the report says is that the means of transmitting information to the families of two soldiers, one suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, and the other killed in a training exercise, have been without compassion for the feelings of either soldier's family.
As a result of the investigations into those two cases Mr. Cote says he also came across records of numerous occasions where families of wounded soldiers requesting information about their child's welfare have been treated like a bureaucratic problem rather than human beings. Now he doesn't offer any dates for those letters but as casualties have escalated substantially in the past year one, and the report has only just been tabled it's easy to believe the practise has continued to this day.
In fact his conclusions lead one to believe that is the case as he said he is very troubled that the families of Canadian armed forces personal continue to be treated like second-class citizens to this day. That would mean that the current government has been in power for part of the time that this report covers, and has done nothing to implement recommendations that were made by the military ombudsman's office in 2005 that the treatment of families by the ministry needed to be improved upon.
Article comments
1 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Richard,
Interesting article about a government that evidently cares about a policy of shipping soldiers out to a distant battlefield but does not care at all about their fate once they are wounded or dead - or even if they succeed in their missions once they arrive on the battlefield.
It behooves one to ask why does the government of Canada wish to send troops to Afghanistan if they are evidently not concerned about their welfare once they arrive on the field...
2 - alessandro nicolo
We generally have a poor track record when it comes to putting our money where our mouth is when it comes to truly honouring our soldiers and their families. It's one thing to get up and speak eloquently - as Richard alludes to - on the floor about them and quite another to back it up with action.
It's not surprising. Look at how we've allowed our military to whither.
3 - Adam
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