My reaction to that is that he's either not listening to me, not understanding me, or he's being disingenuous. It's one of the three, and it can't be all three.
At the end of the day, the pension for life does not meet the long-term financial security needs of Canada's disabled veterans. It doesn't meet it for the 12% of the seriously disabled, and it very much does not meet it for the approximately 88% who are not seriously disabled.
There is no parity with the Pension Act. Nobody wants to go back to the old Pension Act. We want a fair shake. We want what the Government of Canada took away from us in the middle of the Afghanistan war in April 2006. The Prime Minister made his election promise to reinstate the lifelong pension. “Reinstate” means bringing back something that was taken away. That's all we're asking. Give us what you took away. We're not asking for largesse. We're not asking to be made rich overnight. We're asking what was promised to us, and for what was taken away without consultation.