As I have said many times before, the item in the budget that met the stakeholders' three priorities was increasing the earnings loss benefit. We asked for 100%. We got 90%. I think that is the biggest impact.
As I have said before, the only problem is that they demoted those who are in the reserves and those who served in the 1990s, those who didn't get the pay raises in the late 1990s from Paul Martin. Those who were sergeant and below will now be paid as privates. First Veterans Affairs said they were going to demote them to a senior private rank, so the senior private rank was a demotion. Then they said, “We will give you 90% ELB.” That means a person being paid as a senior private will get a $130 increase, and those in senior ranks will get a $12,000 to $18,000 increase a year.
Under the old Pension Act, which all these people are fighting for, it is $32,000 for everybody. Under this new increase of 90% ELB, however, the private is going to get just over $40,000. The assistant deputy minister of policy said that this is just over the poverty level that has been designated, so that is the reason they reduced them to senior private. Mind you, the major is still going to get $100,000 plus his PIA—permanent impairment allowance—so he gets about $132,000, while the private has to support his family.