New announcement: VAC Phone Directory-Minister VRAB Ombudsman DM ADM BPA Charlottetown DO HR Poli

VAC Phone Directory - Minister VRAB Ombudsman DM ADM BPA Charlottetown DO HR Policy Atlantic Area Ontario Region Quebec Region Western Region

Scribd View ONLY: http://www.scribd.com/doc/106048843/VAC-Phone-Directory-Minister-VRAB-Ombudsman-DM-ADM-BPA-Charlottetown-DO-HR-Policy-Atlantic-Area-Ontario-Region-Quebec-Region-Western-Region

For download, attachment if provided.

To unsubscribe from these announcements, login to the forum and uncheck "Receive forum announcements and important notifications by email." in your profile.

You can view the full announcement by following this link:
http://canadianveteransadvocacy.com/Board2/index.php?topic=5907.0

Regards,
The Canadian Veterans Advocacy Team.

New announcement: Final status of Kandahar cenotaph still up in the air

Final status of Kandahar cenotaph still up in the air

By DAVID PUGLIESE, Ottawa Citizen September 7, 2012 6:00 PM

Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Final+status+Kandahar+cenotaph+still/7208736/story.html#ixzz25pfbKT3o

Maj.-Gen. Jonathan, director of staff, strategic joint staff, places poppies on every plaque on the Memorial of the Fallen at Kandahar Airfield during the last Remembrance Day ceremony in southern Afghanistan on November 11, 2011. The honour Canadian Forces members who died as well as Foreign Affairs official Glyn Berry, Calgary Herald journalist Michelle Lang, and Marc Cyr, a civilian from the company SNC Lavalin that was under contract to the Defence Department. Other plaques honour the U.S. military and a civilian member who died while serving under Canadian command.
Photograph by: Sgt Lance Wade , Mission Transition Task Force

OTTAWA — Veterans Affairs Canada and the National Capital Commission rejected the idea that the Kandahar air field cenotaph honouring fallen Canadian soldiers be made into a national memorial in Ottawa, according to Canadian Forces documents.

But the office of the Veterans Affairs Minister Steven Blaney disputes those conclusions, saying no such decision has been made. And the NCC says it has been providing ongoing support to the project.

The Afghanistan conflict is Canada's longest war and there had been a push among some in the military to return the cenotaph that was erected at Kandahar air field (KAF) to Ottawa so it could become a national memorial.

But military officers wrote in a July 2011 briefing note that won't be happening. "Veterans Affairs Canada and the National Capital Commission, two major stakeholders, have already stated that there is no scope to make the KAF Cenotaph a National memorial and they will therefore not get involved in its repatriation or contribute to its emplacement or future upkeep," officers told army commander Lt.-Gen. Peter Devlin.

But they noted that the cenotaph had arguably become the highest profile Canadian memorial in Afghanistan and because of that had assumed an important status. "Because it is well recognized by CF members, Canadians and the Government, it has obtained a quasi 'National' status and its disposition therefore requires careful consideration," the army commander was told.

The government announced in November 2011 that the cenotaph would be dismantled and transported back to Canada. It is now in storage.

But the claims that Veterans Affairs shot down the idea of a national memorial are incorrect, says Niklaus Schwenker, director of communications for Veterans Minister Stephen Blaney.

He said decisions on national monuments are made on a case-by-case basis and at a high government level. "That hasn't happened yet," explained Schwenker.

He noted that Blaney was not consulted nor had given his approval for any position indicating that Veterans Affairs would not be involved with the Kandahar cenotaph.

"We think this is an incredibly important monument," Schwenker added. "Anything we can do in assisting DND or providing advice in how to deal with this, we would be more than happy to do that."

Mark Kristmanson of the NCC said he was surprised to see the details of the briefing note, noting it was not only an inaccurate view of the commission's views but it was written before DND officials had even met with him and his staff. He said the commission has helped DND with conservation for the long-term preservation of the cenotaph, as well as providing recommendations for various sites it could be located.

"It was very evident that this (cenotaph) had great meaning and importance and we treated it as such," said Kristmanson.

"They're (the DND) taking our recommendations and considering them," he added.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay said last year the Defence Department was consulting with the National Capital Commission to identify an appropriate site for the cenotaph. It would be "one that will provide a place for reflection and remembrance for the public, affected families, and the Canadian Forces," he noted in a statement.

The Canadian Forces wants to announce the location of a site for the cenotaph by the end of this year. The memorial would have to be rebuilt at that site and it is possible that some materials will have to be replaced so they can withstand Canadian temperatures.

The military wants to unveil the finished cenotaph by the end of 2014, the year the current training mission of Afghan national security forces is to end.

The cenotaph at Kandahar Airfield became a symbol for many Canadians of the losses endured in the Afghan war. Canadian Forces personnel and Afghan employees built it in 2006 and added to the monument over time.

On the cenotaph are plaques that honour Canadian Forces members who died as well as Foreign Affairs official Glyn Berry, Calgary Herald journalist Michelle Lang, and Marc Cyr, a civilian from the company SNC Lavalin that was under contract to the Defence Department. Other plaques honour the U.S. military and a civilian member who died while serving under Canadian command.

"I would say in every way, shape or form it should be a national memorial," said Retired Canadian Forces colonel Pat Stogran, who fought in Afghanistan and later became the veterans ombudsman. "Afghanistan was a profound event in the history of our country."

But Stogran sees the issues concerning the cenotaph as part of a greater theme in which he believes the government and federal bureaucrats want to distance themselves from the Afghan war. "They would like Afghanistan to go away," he added.

Over the years the war has become controversial, with a number of Canadians questioning the expense and sacrifice that was made.

Schwenker said Veterans Affairs hasn't been consulted yet by the Defence Department about the monument. "If they want VAC's expertise in terms in how to deal with a monument or in terms of placement we're more than happy to give it," he added. "But we haven't been asked. We suspect we may be asked at some point."

Another cenotaph in honour of those killed in Afghanistan was erected at Camp Mirage, the Canadian base in the United Arab Emirates. It was brought back to Canada and was installed at the National Air Force Museum at Canadian Forces Base Trenton, Ont.
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Final+status+Kandahar+cenotaph+still/7208736/story.html#ixzz25pfmzNCG

To unsubscribe from these announcements, login to the forum and uncheck "Receive forum announcements and important notifications by email." in your profile.

You can view the full announcement by following this link:
http://canadianveteransadvocacy.com/Board2/index.php?topic=5694.0

Regards,
The Canadian Veterans Advocacy Team.

New announcement: Benefits flawed, military families say

Benefits flawed, military families say

System 'complex, inconsistent'

http://www2.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/archives/story.html?id=d3b186dc-fd35-4e29-842d-206a8f3b244f

David Pugliese, Postmedia News
Published: Monday, August 06

Canadian Forces families say they're being denied services and benefits by the military or are forced to deal with an overly bureaucratic system that is sometimes not relevant to their needs, according to Defence Department records.

For years, various generals, as well as Defence Minister Peter MacKay, have publicly identified Canadian Forces families as the backbone of a wellfunctioning military. But the system set up to provide services and benefits to those families is facing a series of problems, military leaders were told in November and December.

In providing feedback to the military, families said the system is "overly bureaucratic" and "complex to navigate" and "inconsistently implemented nationally" and "not relevant to the need of different family types." The system was also described as being inflexible in solving problems.

The records were obtained by Postmedia News using the Access to Information law. The documents summarize the presentations made by the National Military Family Council to Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Walter Natynczyk and other senior leaders. The council is an advisory group that provides a voice for military families to the senior leadership of the Canadian Forces and Department of National Defence.

The group noted a number of concerns, including reports from families who say they are being denied services and benefits.

"Families feel they only receive support if they meet the narrow definitions provided in program policies and mandates," the council said.

There were also a number of barriers to accessing services, including red tape, geography and language issues.

In addition, military families reported they lacked awareness on the scope and availability of programs offered for them. There are a large variety of services available, ranging from health care to counselling to help with relocating to a new city or base.

The senior leaders were also told that the military family services program used too narrow an interpretation of family. The program was further faulted for providing services only during the workday and making its services "only available to those who live very close."

The "parameters for practice" governing the program, set up in 1991, have not been updated in a decade.

Natynczyk highlighted his concern that decisions being taken at a higher level were not being followed up at lower levels.

The outcome of the meeting was the development of a series of recommendations, including the proposed creation of a national publicity campaign to highlight the role of National Military Family Council to military members.

In a presentation in May, and published on the Internet, Candace Thorne, chairperson of the military family council, pointed out that there are many issues affecting the services provided to military families, including those dealing with relocation, the extra living allowances personnel receive if they are sent to particular cities, problems accessing services and child care.

"These themes are not new and we don't expect them to disappear or be easily resolved," she noted.

To unsubscribe from these announcements, login to the forum and uncheck "Receive forum announcements and important notifications by email." in your profile.

You can view the full announcement by following this link:
http://canadianveteransadvocacy.com/Board2/index.php?topic=5693.0

Regards,
The Canadian Veterans Advocacy Team.

New announcement: Feature on the Priority Hiring Program Its Shortcomings on helping Vets.

To unsubscribe from these announcements, login to the forum and uncheck "Receive forum announcements and important notifications by email." in your profile.

You can view the full announcement by following this link:
http://canadianveteransadvocacy.com/Board2/index.php?topic=5691.0

Regards,
The Canadian Veterans Advocacy Team.

New announcement: BRIEFING BOOK FOR THE MINISTER OF VETERANS AFFAIRS

BRIEFING BOOK FOR THE MINISTER OF VETERANS AFFAIRS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introductory Overview

Veterans Affairs Portfolio Overview
Policy, Programs and Partnerships Branch
Service Delivery and Commemoration Branch
Corporate Services Branch
Departmental Secretariat and Policy Coordination Division
Audit and Evaluation Division
Departmental Legal Service Unit (Justice Canada)
Bureau of Pensions Advocates
Veterans Ombudsman
Veterans Review and Appeal Board
General Key Messages
Veterans Affairs Portfolio Organization and Personalities

Major Programs and Services

Traditional Programs for War Service Veterans and Other Clients
New Veterans Charter: Disability Awards and Wellness Programs
Remembrance Programming
Ste. Anne's Hospital

Opportunities

Priority Areas
Communications Events and Opportunities

Backdrop

The Historical Context of Veterans Affairs
Legislative and Regulatory Overview: Ministerial Responsibilities
Audits and Evaluations
The Socio-Economic Impact of Veterans Affairs in Prince Edward Island and Kirkland
Lake, Ontario

Stakeholders

Veterans' Organizations
Advisory Groups
Partnership with the Department of National Defence
Federal Healthcare Partnership
Parliamentary Committees: House and Senate

Portfolio Publications

Departmental Performance Report (2009-2009)
Report on Plans and Priorities (2009-2010)

Scribd: http://www.scribd.com/doc/105168411

To unsubscribe from these announcements, login to the forum and uncheck "Receive forum announcements and important notifications by email." in your profile.

You can view the full announcement by following this link:
http://canadianveteransadvocacy.com/Board2/index.php?topic=5678.0

Regards,
The Canadian Veterans Advocacy Team.

New announcement: Caregiver Cruise Giveaway Contest - Tracy Kerr - Billy Kerr Triple Amputee

Tracy Kerr is the wife of Cpl Billy Kerr, Bill was wounded during his tour that fell under RCR command. She is a great person and has been working triple shifts ever since... if she receives the most votes then she wins the cruise. You can vote daily and until Sept 15th.

GO VOTE>>> http://cruise.caregiverstress.com/entries/tracy-k-2/ <<<

OTTAWA—Cpl. Billy Kerr has a burning sensation in his heel and on the last two toes on his right foot.

"I look down and I want to scratch them," he says. "I feel it."

He can't scratch them. He doesn't have heels. Or toes. On the morning of Oct. 15, 2008, he stepped inside a mud compound in Afghanistan shortly before noon and a bomb ripped off his legs above the knee and his left arm a few inches below his elbow.

Kerr, Canada's only triple amputee to return from Afghanistan, remembers everything about that day.

His left leg hanging by sinews. The sense — wrong as it turned out — that the damage wasn't so bad to his right leg. Seeing his watch continue to tick on his gloved hand, which was severed from his body.

Now he gazes down at the metal and plastic contraptions that stand in for his legs and arm and prays the staggeringly powerful 175-milligram patches of fentanyl — a drug far more potent than morphine that he uses each day — will dull the pain. The nerves in his three stumps have excruciatingly wrapped around the splintered fragments of bone in his body.

This pain is the war that Kerr, a 43-year-old reservist from Sudbury, Ont., will never win. The sensations mock him morning, noon and night and they steal his sleep, though he rarely mentions it.

Instead he focuses on the battles at hand, which are as foreign to the standout athlete and former bartender as the dusty Kandahar landscape is to most Canadians. He does this with the help of his second-in-command, wife Tracy.

"Whatever he needs, I'm his gofer. I'm his two legs and his arm," says Tracy Kerr, who quit her waitress job at a Sudbury restaurant to care for her husband.

Tracy drives him to endless appointments with doctors, military officials and therapists. She fills out mountains of paperwork. She claims expenses for trips to rehab in Ottawa and for housing modifications.

Then she waits. Often months pass before the money comes in and she can pay off their credit cards.

One $852 cheque reimbursing her for six weeks of lost wages after Kerr's injury only arrived this year, 20 months after she submitted her initial application.

Another payout for the cost of transporting her vehicle and clothes from Sudbury to Ottawa, where she lived during Kerr's 18-month hospital stay, only came through a few weeks ago.

"You assume that if they're going to come back like this, then boom, they're going to have everything all set up," she says. "But they didn't."

When he first considered joining the military, an 18-year-old Billy Kerr was talked out of it by a girl. The second time around two girls were behind his decision to enlist as a reserve in the Irish Regiment of Canada, his daughters Zoe and Abbie, who are now 10 and 7, respectively. It was 2003 and Kerr was 36.

"I wanted to do something more than just being a bartender," he says. "I wanted something where my kids could be proud of what their father was doing."

He was in the reserves until November 2005, when he was accepted for a tour in Afghanistan. He got six months of training — but nothing could truly prepare him for combat.

Every day his all-reserve team drove convoys through Kandahar province. Every night they slept inside the safety of the coalition base, Kandahar Airfield.

They ran more than 200 convoy missions during that deployment; 16 times they hit roadside bombs. One friend's face was seriously burned when a suicide bomber blew up his car next to their convoy. But Kerr was hooked. He felt like he was making a difference in the world.

"The day I got back from my first tour, I told (Tracy) I wanted to go back."

He saw a perfect opportunity when Warrant Officer Gaetan Roberge, a tough-as-nails mentor at the regiment, told him about a chance to train Afghan police in Kandahar. Kerr had been thinking of joining the Sudbury police force.

Kerr arrived back in Afghanistan in September 2008. Home was a 30-square-metre police station in the middle of the violent Panjwaii district. Their task was to teach proper procedures to a notoriously corrupt and abusive national police force.

"We went out on patrols. So if you went out east, it was a cool patrol. You didn't have to worry about too much. You didn't have to bring out extra ammo. You could go out and talk to the villagers. We gave out candies and pencils and pens.

"When you went out to the west, everybody was turning away. Nobody wants to talk to you. They're always looking down or walking away from you when you're going through."

On Oct. 15, Kerr headed west as part of a large patrol expecting trouble. There was a small skirmish early on with enemy fighters, but the bulk of the work involved searching villages and clearing compounds of hidden weapons.

By 11:30 a.m. there was one final compound to be cleared. By twos, the soldiers entered the building. The fifth and sixth through the doorway were Kerr and his sergeant. Kerr made sure to step on the bootprints of those who had already entered, as he had been trained.

His boot hit the ground and the blast hit his body, making him think the bomb was detonated by a cellphone or other remote device. Then the Taliban ambush began. And the Canadian medics went to work on the latest casualty of the Afghan war.

For two weeks in October, Kerr is in Ottawa training to get his license to drive a modified car. He is frustrated. He feels he is being treated like a 16-year-old boy, not a 43-year-old war veteran. He and Tracy arrive in their black Chevrolet Blazer. Dogs Boomer and Hunter, their constant companions, whimper in the back.

The passenger door pops open and Kerr swings out his prosthetic legs. He heaves himself off the seat with his only functioning limb and shifts his weight gingerly onto his legs.

They are his 16th set of prosthetic legs in less than two years — more than most amputees will go through in a lifetime. At first, he was healing quickly and the scar tissue in his legs shrank fast, necessitating an ever-slimmer, better-fitting leg. Then, a year ago, the growth of the nerve-wrapped bone fragments made it too difficult to stand for more than a few seconds, never mind walk.

At the back of the truck, Tracy hoists a 135-kilogram electric wheelchair with a motorized lift. She rolls it behind him, putting an end to his brief struggle and wincing pain. He reverses the steps to get into the driving instructor's car.

In the driver's seat, he wraps his prosthetic hand around a lever that controls the gas and brakes and heads off on the highways and side streets. Behind the wheel, nobody can tell the damage that has been done to his body.

This is what he wants. It is why he puts his legs on even to wheel to the corner store, although he won't be able to walk on them until after another surgery to remove the splintered bone growth.

It's also what he'll never have, and he is reminded of it constantly.

Kerr took his daughters swimming at a hotel pool in Sudbury two months after his injury. Five or six families were frolicking in the water. They disappeared within five minutes of his arrival. Any doubt that this was a coincidence disappeared when it happened a second time at a public pool.

Military friends have also disappeared. They see in his savaged body a reminder of their own mortality. Kerr knows this because he felt the same horror the first time he saw a soldier walk past him on two prosthetic legs at CFB Petawawa.

"Soldiers looked at him and they're thinking, that could be you," he says. "Guys don't want to think about that."

Now the roles are reversed. Kerr played hockey. He was on three baseball teams. These days he can no longer stomach watching others do what he can't.

When the driving lesson is finished, Kerr pulls into the hospital parking lot. Tracy and his instructor rush to open the door and help him out of the car, but a tall, ramrod-straight soldier calls them off. Kerr peers up to see the boyish grin of Gen. Walter Natynczyk, the chief of defence staff, asking whether the designer sunglasses, ballcap and scruff on his chin is some sort of homage to Joint Task Force Two, Canada's top secret special forces unit.

Crossing paths with Kerr is chance. The head of the Canadian Forces is meeting a young combat engineer who lost two legs to a roadside bomb this summer in Afghanistan. It is a part of his job that few see, but it shows how seriously he takes the problems of amputee soldiers.

It doesn't make it any easier to offer them a secure future.

When Kerr was first visited in hospital by the many generals controlling his future, he told them he wanted to remain in the army.

"I said, 'I bleed green.' Anything they wanted to hear I'd say to them to show how much I wanted to stay in."

The regiment back in Sudbury offered him full-time work on the firing range until they realized they couldn't actually afford to pay for a full-time position at a reserve unit.

Later Natynczyk suggested he become an officer instructing army cadets, essentially teaching kids camping and survival skills.

"I guess it sounds good in some ways, but it's the biggest slap in the face a soldier can get. Privates don't salute officer cadets. You're in the army but you're not really in the army," Kerr says. "It's like being a Cub Scout. I don't want to be a Cub Scout leader."

So he lives from one six-month military contract extension to the next, never sure when he will be passed on to the Veterans Affairs Department, where he will receive three-quarters of his corporal's salary until the age of 65 and be called out each Remembrance Day as a reminder of the Canadian sacrifice in Afghanistan.

Despite the uncertainty, the Kerrs are getting ready for the next chapter of their lives. On Nov. 17, they are due to move into a new home on five acres of land in Chelmsford, just outside Sudbury.

The house is the brainchild of a Sudbury union president and fellow member of the Irish regiment, Derik McArthur. Three days after Kerr arrived at the hospital in Ottawa, McArthur visited and told his old friend that he was going to raise enough money to build him an accessible house. It would replace the tiny cottage they had been living in behind Tracy's mother's house, which was too small to modify or expand.

"At least he would never have to worry about where he's going to live," McArthur says. "If we can fix one thing, he'll never have to be homeless."

Kerr was reluctant to accept the offer. Tracy doubted it would succeed.

"I'm totally in the back of my mind going, 'You're not going to get that much money for one injured soldier,' " says Tracy.

But word got out. Before long, it seemed an entire city was involved in building a Home for a Hero, as the project was dubbed.

The local country radio station kicked in promotions and advertising. A home builder offered labour and expertise. A lumber company put up the wood. A local ad man set up and ran the website. An elementary school bake sale brought in $390. Grandmothers whose husbands had died in World War II sent $20 bills. A construction company even paved an access road so people could get to the four-lane highway where McArthur had organized a fundraising walk in Kerr's honour last fall that raised $100,000. The access road was torn up days later.

They finally broke ground on the house this summer. About $260,000 worth of financial contributions, plus supplies and services, have come from donations. The Canadian Forces is paying $200,000 to cover the costs for the wider doorways, extra square footage and special appliances that will make the house fully accessible.

What seemed an impossibility is now a reality. That reality brings security, but not enough to ease Kerr's mind.

Along with a security system, Kerr insisted the house be built with a hidden panic room where he will store his collection of pistols, shotguns and an unused M4 rifle, the same type of weapon that he carried in Kandahar when he was injured.

It will also keep his family safe in the event of an emergency. It's something he never would have considered before a bomb hidden in the ground thousands of kilometres away took his limbs and his confidence.

"I can't defend my family and that's a hard pill to swallow. It's probably one of the reasons that I don't sleep, too."

To unsubscribe from these announcements, login to the forum and uncheck "Receive forum announcements and important notifications by email." in your profile.

You can view the full announcement by following this link:
http://canadianveteransadvocacy.com/Board2/index.php?topic=5589.0

Regards,
The Canadian Veterans Advocacy Team.

New announcement: Calgary school named for first female soldier in Canada to be killed in combat

Calgary school named for first female soldier in Canada to be killed in combat

Read more: http://www.windsorstar.com/news/Calgary+school+named+first+female+soldier+Canada+killed+combat/7158499/story.html#ixzz24wnk00GC

CALGARY - The first Canadian female soldier to be killed in action while serving in a combat role will be honoured by having a new school named for her in Calgary.

Capt. Nichola Goddard, a 26-year-old artillery officer, died in a Taliban ambush in the Panjwaii district of Afghanistan on May 17, 2006.

Lt.-Col. Scott Long trained with Goddard and says the school will be a great legacy.

He says he knows she would be proud and thrilled.

And he says from a military perspective, it's good to see the sacrifice of a soldier recognized by the Calgary Board of Education.

Captain Nichola Goddard School will welcome students for classes next Tuesday.

(CHQR)

To unsubscribe from these announcements, login to the forum and uncheck "Receive forum announcements and important notifications by email." in your profile.

You can view the full announcement by following this link:
http://canadianveteransadvocacy.com/Board2/index.php?topic=5551.0

Regards,
The Canadian Veterans Advocacy Team.