I am quoted today in a piece by John Ibbitson of the Globe and Mail titled, Tories mull shrinking Veterans Affairs as old soldiers fade away.
“Two competing principles are at work here,” observes Brian Lee Crowley of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute for Public Policy, an Ottawa think tank.
“On the one hand, we have great pressures on the government to reduce spending, and so abolishing the Department of Veterans Affairs might result in some administrative savings, say by rolling it into the Department of National Defence,” he said.
“On the other hand, if there is one group to whom the country owes an undeniable debt of gratitude that should be manifested in solicitous attention to their needs, it would be those who risked their lives on behalf of the country. I tend to come down on this side of the conflict.”
