http://www.theglobeandmail.com/v5/content/features/budget/2007/budget_2007_priorities.html
The federal Conservatives want to improve the lives of individual soldiers and those who have left the service.
The Defence department will pay soldiers who are working in “difficult and hazardous” conditions an additional allowance of at least $285 per month – an amount that will increase according to the number of years they have spent in the service.
“Our history has shown us that we are best at protecting others when our Forces are strong and our soldiers are supporters,” Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said in his speech to the Commons yesterday, “when our soldiers can count on their government as much as their government counts on them.”
Through the new budget, the government is acknowledging that there is a price to be paid here at home for years of deployment to dangerous places like Afghanistan.
The new danger pay will be available to anyone who is assigned to a field unit that is on deployment or capable of being deployed, so it will be paid even when the soldiers are at home working out of their Canadian bases.
This allowance replaces a previous system that paid the soldiers on a daily basis when they were actually in the field – or on deployment – and brings them in line with sailors and airmen who have, for some time, been given a monthly allowance when they are on a ship or posted to any air force base.
There will also be $9 million set aside annually to create five new occupational stress injury clinics to help veterans and current members of the Canadian Forces who are having trouble dealing with the emotional toll of dangerous deployments. This money will pay for “critically timed” interventions, social support and counseling to help military personnel readjust to life back home.
And additional $1 million has been set aside to help military families. The government has been targeted by critics who say it has not done enough to pay for the increasing number of children.
