Injured Vet pushing for overhaul on VAC

[Nudibranch]

You kind of lost me on this.  I do agree that Universality of Service does have some problems.  It is written in "Black and White with not shades of Grey".  My wife, who is in the PS, can't understand why the CAF has a compulsory Retirement age of 60 (now), while the rest of the PS and nation do not.  To tell you the truth, it may be a good question, if you look at some 60 year olds who are in good health and physically fit, capable to still fill some roles in the CAF; and the 30 year olds who have been heavy chain smokers and drinkers and look twice their age.  Of course this is a general statement, as not all 60 year olds are still in good health and physically fit, nor are all 30 year olds heavy drinkers and chain smokers.  There are of course those who are the exceptions, and Regulations written in "Black and White with not shades of Grey" leave no leeway to any exceptions to the rule.  Is it worth pondering?  Perhaps?  Perhaps not?

There are certainly CAF members who couldn't sustain a physically heavy deployment, but meet UoS on paper. Sometimes they're found during pre-dep screening and sent on the way to a PCAT; but in times when the CAF doesn't deploy many people, they remain in the CAF as long as they do their annual PT test and nothing really scary comes up on their medicals. We all know that.

But I think there's a difference between "look, we all know this happens", and actually changing the rules to drop the UoS requirement. Retained-with-PCAT mbrs are acknowledged as being on their way out, after all (I mean the ones with release MEL's getting a couple years' retention from DMCA, not the random G3's who are just continuing in the career with minor restrictions). Those mbrs in JPSU are either on the way out via the PCAT process, or hoped to improve and return to duties - including UoS.

Once you drop UoS, officially, questions are bound to come up as to why this job would need to be done be a soldier at all. A soldier may do various jobs in peacetime, but theoretically at least the point is for him or her to deploy if the country needs it. If they don't have to meet UoS, if we say it's ok to be a fully employed, not-on-the-way-out CAF mbr, you just totally can't deploy (or work full time, or go to the field, or whatever) - why would you need to be a CAF mbr at all? Why not put a civ in that job? For that matter, why not recruit into the CAF a Type 1 diabetic who needs to see their doc every 3 weeks; after all, a garrison job would suit such a mbr fine, and they might be the holy grail when it comes to making PowerPoints or processing TD claims!

 

[Pieman]

Once you drop UoS, officially, questions are bound to come up as to why this job would need to be done be a soldier at all. 

Isn't the purpose of the UoS to meet NATO requirements to have X many deployable troops?

 

[mariomike]

My wife, who is in the PS, can't understand why the CAF has a compulsory Retirement age of 60 (now), while the rest of the PS and nation do not. 

With a 2 per cent accrual rate, if compulsory retirement is age 60, members joining after age 25 will have a retirement income of less than the allowed 70 per cent of their pre-retirement earnings.

Because of the nature of their work, Police Officers, Firefighters and Paramedics now benefit from an increased annual pension accrual rate of 2.33 per cent for each year of credited service.

Perhaps this is something that could be considered for the military.

 

[dapaterson]

Frankly, a roll-back to 2% for police, fire, and paramedic would be more in order.  Given changes to life expectancy, those folks may draw pension benefits for twice as long as their working life.  The pension plans cannot support that without radical increases to contributions.

Besides, there is nothing anywhere that states that anyone is entitled to receive a 70% pension.  The military needs to be supportive of its personnel, but also should retain the primacy of operations in its personnel policies - CRA 60 should never be the right to serve to 60, but rather the right of the CF to retain someone to age 60 if there is a need.  And sometimes there is a need to let good peopel go to keep the insitution healthy.


The CF does review and amend standards as new info comes out - hence the move to CRA 60 from CRA 55. 

 

[Teager]

I think the big question here is if I a member is injured/ill can't work on a full time basis, is not in receipt of a pension or even if they are and is not eligible for permanent disability what do we do with them?

Stokerwes has pointed this out and many have families to support. Do we change VAC and have that person fall under permanent disability or create a new category? Or do we say no you can work part time even though your struggling with your injury/illness and are most likely stuck working for minimum wage (possibly more).

I think the hardest part for any injured/ill member is taking care of and supporting there family. When you get told your pay is dropping dramatically the panic button gets hit. This causes much stress on families not to mention the rest of the stress that comes with the bureaucratic bs of the system. At the end of the day many families are split up because of this. It would be interesting to see stats on amount of families broken apart because of the system. IMO losing ones family is way more devastating then being injured/ill. So when soldiers are fighting for better benefits are trying to get a decent paying job its not just for them but for their families. IMO a soldier is going to fight tooth and nail for what they hold closest to them.
/End Rant/