NDP Leader Jack Layton is greeted by supporters as he attends a campaign rally in Dartmouth, N.S.The Toronto Star:
Dartmouth, Nova Scotia — Jack Layton was the first politician in this campaign to promise something for military veterans, with a plan to stop clawing back pensions and treating disability benefits as income.
“They don’t do it to lottery winners. Why would they do it to veterans?” Layton said Saturday after announcing his $103 million promise to improve benefits for veterans, retired RCMP officers and injured military personnel.
The New Democrat leader took advantage of being out and about on a day when his political rivals are taking a break to announce something for a segment of the population his Conservative and Liberal counterparts have so far left unmentioned on the campaign trail with all their focus on families.
Pat Stogran, the outspoken former ombudsman for veterans, noted as much when he spoke to the gathering of about 400 veterans and NDP supporters at a sports complex in Dartmouth, N.S.
“The past five years of the so-called Harper government have been a very bleak period for veterans,” said Stogran, who has decried what he calls an insurance-company mindset at Veterans Affairs Canada that puts a priority on saving money instead of helping soldiers out.
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