You can go into this action feeling assured of this, and as the head of the government I give you this assurance: That you need not fear that the government and the country will fail to show just appreciation of your service to the country and Empire in what you are about to do and what you have already done. The government and the country will consider it their first duty to see that a proper appreciation of your effort and of your courage is brought to the notice of people at home…that no man, whether he goes back or whether he remains in Flanders, will have just cause to reproach the government for having broken faith with the men who won and the men who died. ~Conservative PM Robert Borden, 1917
The Harper government, as one wag puts it, is trying an “Ezra Defamation” defence to get it off the hook for its despicable treatment of our veterans. That “social covenant,” first expressed by then-Prime Minister Robert Borden on the eve of Vimy Ridge? It was just a political speech. The government didn’t really mean it.
Six Afghan vets started a class action suit to obtain rightful benefits for themselves and their comrades. The government tried to have the case thrown out, arguing that Borden’s nearly hundred-year-old commitment has no legal force.
A BC court disagreed. Unbelievably, the government appealed.
To Harper, it seems, the only good soldiers are dead soldiers. And their only use is to promote costly Conservative pageantry—or to provide a tasteless photo-op.
Meanwhile, Harper does like to play Mr. Dressup:
Not to mention his wretched Minister of Veterans Affairs, sporting a chestful of medals in front of one of his betters.
What is all this, anyway—penis envy?
