The December 2017 federal overhaul of Canada’s Veterans Disability Pension has some veterans up in arms. They claim the distribution of benefits is cloaked in ambiguity.
Recent historical research about Canada’s original disability pension for veterans reveals history could be repeating itself.
Canada’s pension system for disabled war veterans was established by Order-in-Council on March 2, 1917 – the year before World War I ended. Less than 100 years later, research led by a team at the Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies in Waterloo, Ontario, has focused on how disabled Canadian ex-service people of the Great War engaged the pension system.
The 1917 Order-in-Council declared: “No deduction shall be made from the amount awarded to any pernsioner [sp?] owing to his having undertaken work or perfected himself in some form of industry. The amount of a man’s pension is decided simply by the extent of the incapacity he has incurred by doing his duty as a soldier.”
However, the Laurier Centre’s research team claims that the path leading up to applying for a disability pension, and the path travelled after applying – both for former officers and privates – were often shrouded in ambiguity.
The team’s findings are highlighted in a recent ActiveHistory.ca blog post series. The blogs centre around the 170,000 Canadians injured in WW1.
According to Coming Home: Veterans, Pensions and the Canadian State After the Great War, “Although this [Order-in-Council’s] concept of ‘attributability’ was meant to encourage objectivity on the part of those who evaluated applications, it nonetheless remained ambiguous,” writes Eric Story on January 23, 2018.
Brittany Dunn chronicles Lieutenant George Adams’ experience in He Will Again Be Able to Make Himself Self-Sustaining: Canadian Ex-Officers’ Return to Civilian Life.
On February 20, 2018, Dunn writes, “… ex-officers framed their pension applications in language which … emphasized assistance as a last resort.”
At 36, Adams joined the Canadian Army in 1916. He was partially buried by a shell and wounded by shrapnel and bullets. In 1919, Adams was discharged. He did not apply for a disability pension until 1939.
Dunn writes, “Lieutenant Adams told the CPC [Canadian Pension Commission] he had not applied … ‘until [his] condition ha[d] become so that he is considerably handicapped.’ He lived on his savings until they ran out.”
Adams was granted a veterans’ allowance and was awarded a 25 percent pension for arthritis.
In her February 6, 2018 blog, The Difficulty in Diagnosis: Shell Shock and the Case of Private Dennis R., Kanace Bogaert relates how challenging it was to obtain a disability pension for psychological illnesses.
Dennis was one of more than 15,000 WWI Canadian soldiers diagnosed with combat-related psychological illnesses.
In 1918, Dennis was discharged from the military and hospital. Although a medical board claimed Dennis had suffered from a 75 percent disability caused by service, the Board of Pension Commissioners (BPC) rejected Dennis’s pension application. After hospital treatment, his symptoms subsided, and pensions were only awarded for permanent ability loss.
Ten years later, Dennis, age 31, was observed at Montreal’s St. Anne de Bellevue mental hospital. He complained of feeling weak, falling asleep at work and head pain. Dennis asked for treatment and wanted to re-apply for a pension.
“His diagnosis was changed to ‘constitutional psychopathic inferiority’ … that implied inherited mental degeneracy,” writes Bogaert. “This was … not eligible for a pension because inheritance could not be attributed to military service.”
Dennis launched an appeal, which was also denied.
“The BPC assured veterans that their evaluations and ratings of disability due to war service were ‘both accurate and fair’,” writes Bogaert. “Veterans, however, did not always agree.”
– 30 –
Accompanying photo:
Caption: Canadian soldiers return home to Toronto, 1919
(Source: Wikipedia)
ANNEX A
Evidence of first-hand research
For this article, I have accessed several websites, including the following:
1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Passchendaele
Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia
2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Canada_during_World_War_I
Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia
3) Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies
4) Coming Home: Veterans, Pensions and the Canadian State After the Great War
Coming Home: Veterans, Pensions and the Canadian State After the Great War
5) He Will Again Be Able to Make Himself Self-Sustaining: Canadian Ex-Officers’ Return to Civilian Life.
6) ActiveHistory.ca
7) The Difficulty in Diagnosis: Shell Shock and the Case of Private Dennis R
8) 1917 order in council: http://www.warmuseum.ca/firstworldwar/objects-and-photos/archival-documents/government-documents/pensions-and-industry/?back=484
9) http://www.throughveteranseyes.ca/articles/
10) http://activehistory.ca/2018/01/coming-home-veterans-pensions-and-the-canadian-state-after-the-great-war/
11) http://www.warmuseum.ca/firstworldwar/history/after-the-war/veterans/benefits-and-land-for-veterans/
12) http://www.warmuseum.ca/firstworldwar/objects-and-photos/archival-documents/government-documents/pensions-and-industry/?back=484
13) https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/liberals-pension-plan-for-disabled-veterans-won-t-take-effect-until-2019-1.3729370
14) https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/government-fails-to-meet-veterans-expectations-regarding-the-re-establishment-of-lifelong-pensions-under-new-veterans-charter-668152793.html
15) Library & Archives Canada
16) The Canadian War Museum
17) http://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/here-is-how-a-second-world-war-canadian-veteran-is-treated-differently-than-an-afghan-war-canadian-veteran
18) The Canadian Museum of History
Annex B
Two pieces of documentation
Document I
Q1: What is the documentation?
A1:
• The document is an online blog called Coming Home: Veterans, Pensions and the Canadian State After the Great War.
• URL: http://activehistory.ca/2018/01/coming-home-veterans-pensions-and-the-canadian-state-after-the-great-war/
• The document was written by Eric Story, who is a member of the research team at the Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies in Waterloo, Ontario. The team started to conduct research in 2014 on how disabled Canadian ex-service people of the Great War engaged the pension system and the fact that Canadian war veterans’ original disability pension (created in 1917) was shrouded in ambiguity. This document was the first in a series of 5 documents that highlight this theme, providing historical evidence and using case studies to do so.
• The blog was published on the ActiveHistory.ca website on January 23, 2018.
Q2: How did you find/obtain it?
A2: When I began to conduct online research for my Data Visualization assignment several weeks ago, I came across Eric Story’s article.
Q3: Why was the documentation helpful?
A3: I thought that the fact that Canadian veterans’ original disability pension was enveloped in ambiguity, as is today’s disability pension, would make for an interesting topic for this assignment. This blog post is excellent in that it:
• is written by a professional historical military researcher, which gives me confidence in its content and factual accuracy
• is the first in a series of five blog posts related to this subject. As a result, it sets the foundation for, and explains what the requirements were, for a veteran to be considered eligible for the pension, and why the original disability pension (established in 1917) was shrouded in ambiguity.
• led me to other blog posts in the series that were also very helpful to my story
• is well-written
Document II
Q1: What is the documentation?
A1:
• The document is an online blog post called The Difficulty in Diagnosis: Shell Shock and the Case of Private Dennis R.
• URL: http://activehistory.ca/2018/02/the-difficulty-in-diagnosis-shell-shock-and-the-case-of-private-dennis-r/
• The document was written by Kanace Bogaert, who is also a member of the research team at the Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies in Waterloo, Ontario. The team started to conduct research in 2014 on how disabled Canadian ex-service people of the Great War engaged the pension system and on the fact that Canadian war veterans’ original disability pension (created in 1917) was shrouded in ambiguity.
• This blog tells the story of Private Dennis R., illustrating how challenging it was to obtain treatment or a disability pension post-First World War for psychological illnesses.
• The blog post was published on the ActiveHistory.ca website on February 6, 2018.
Q2: How did you find/obtain it?
A2: When I came across the first blog post in the series, it mentioned the fact that it was the first blog post in a series. I therefore did a Google search for the other blog posts and came across this one.
Q3: Why was the documentation helpful?
A3: I found this document to be very helpful because it:
• is written by a professional historical military researcher, which gives me confidence in its content and factual accuracy
• chronicles a case study, which makes for interesting reading
• further explains why the original veterans disability pension was shrouded in ambiguity, in the context of how challenging it was to obtain treatment, or a disability pension, post-First World War for psychological illnesses
• is well-written