“I think the first thing that comes to my mind is relief, not only for myself, but for the veterans out there that were so profoundly impacted,” Mr. Manuge, 43, told The Hill Times last week.
More than 6,000 veterans took the federal government to court in a class-action lawsuit when their pain and suffering payments were clawed back through SISIP. The insurance plan pays 75 per cent of a person’s salary if they are medically discharged from the Canadian Forces, but at the same time the government was deducting any additional payments the veteran received for pain and suffering.
Federal Court Justice Robert Barnes ruled on May 1 that the federal government was wrong to claw back this benefit to veterans who were injured in the line of duty. The government announced two weeks ago that it would not appeal the decision.
“The men and women who serve and sacrifice in Canada’s name need to know that their government will stand behind them and provide the benefits they need when their service is complete,” said Defence Minister Peter MacKay (Central Nova, N.S.) on May 29 in a statement. “I am pleased to announce our government will discontinue the offset for Long Term Disability benefits.”
While the court case started in 2007, Mr. Manuge, the lead plaintiff on the class-action lawsuit, said the fight to “right the wrong” started in 2003 when he was medically discharged as a corporal from the Canadian Forces after he fell off an armoured vehicle. Mr. Manuge, a mechanic, was working on the vehicle in Petawawa and accidentally fell 10 feet in October 2000, landing on concrete on his right side and lower back. He broke a bone in his facet joint which healed with a bone spur.
But Mr. Manuge said he wasn’t given proper rest and recovery, or early physiotherapy, and said his lumbar spine degenerated with a generative disc disease. Mr. Manuge said arthritic changes happened early and it became an issue of daily and chronic physical pain.
Mr. Manuge was dispatched to Bosnia from March to October 2001 which made his injury worse.
“Working long days, sleeping on a cot, essentially, and that kind of thing, just really aggravated my situation and that was a huge part of the deterioration of my condition to the point of release,” Mr. Manuge told The Hill Times.
When he started receiving his benefits as a disabled veteran in January 2004, he said he was losing $384 a month because of the clawback. He took it personally, he said, but it wasn’t until he started hearing from other veterans who were losing between $2,500 and $3,000 a month that he started to get angry. On top of this, former federal Veterans Affairs Canada ombudsman Pat Stogran spoke about the issue in one of his final reports, backing the veterans.
“It became more about not only myself but standing up for these other folks who were just not well enough mentally, emotionally, physically, to speak out and to write letters and emails and talk and deal with the media,” Mr. Manuge said.
“Afghanistan was just starting and I thought, ‘I just don’t want any veteran to go down this road or have to experience this.’ The financial side of it is one thing but it’s that dignity and disillusionment that you truly feel abandoned because it’s when you need the resources the most that they’re taking it away from you. … I just put it on my shoulders,”
NDP MP Peter Stoffer (Sackville-Eastern Shore, N.S.) said Mr. Manuge, who is one of his constituents, is “one of the bravest” and “principled” people he knows. “After everything that he went through psychologically and physically, most people would’ve just said, ‘Look I fought one war, I’m not going to fight another one’ and just stay at home with his family and try to live day to day, but no, he was determined to right a wrong,” Mr. Stoffer, who has been working with Mr. Manuge and other veterans such as Sean Bruyea and Perry Gray on these issues, told The Hill Times last week. “He never ever gave up.”
But Mr. Manuge, who joined the military in 1995, said that it wasn’t easy and at times he “absolutely” did want to give up. “There were some pretty dark days,” said the Musquodoboit Harbour, N.S., resident. “It was kind of a double-edged sword for me emotionally and mentally. It really took its toll in that I felt a connection to each veteran and their family who I spoke to because we had this common link of service to the country and this secondary link of feeling abandoned and betrayed. That was the thing, I just couldn’t let it go.”
The Federal Court certified the class-action case in 2008, but the government appealed the decision and won at the Federal Court of Appeal. Mr. Manuge’s lawyers then took the fight to the Supreme Court of Canada which ruled in favour of the class-action being allowed to move forward. Mr. Manuge’s team once again returned to the Federal Court in November 2011, to begin arguing the case.
He said he was burnt out, angry that no one would listen, and frustrated that there was “tremendous infighting within the veterans’ community” about how things should move forward.
At times, he said, his wife Tracy, who Mr. Manuge calls his “rock,” and his psychologist had to password protect him from his own computer so that he would not lose control of himself and forced him to take breaks in order to keep him sane.
“I think what kept me in the game or why I didn’t quit is that even though things were moving slowly, the lawyers and everybody were working hard on our behalf and I did see the system working. I did see us progressing even though it was a heck of a lot slower than I wanted,” he said.
“Then I’d get one more phone call or one more email from somebody who was in really bad shape and so profoundly impacted financially that it just kind of plugged me into the recharger and just kept me going. I can’t back out. This isn’t just about me and sometimes you have to set your own stuff aside,” Mr. Manuge said.
Mr. Stoffer, meanwhile, said Mr. Manuge is “a man of such inner strength” and does not know where he got it from.
“He’s a remarkable human being,” Mr. Stoffer said. “He was pretty anxious near May. When he came up here and did a final press conference in May, it was 50-50 on which way the government was going. We simply didn’t know, but many, many Canadians across the country were putting pressure on all Members of Parliament to encourage the government not to appeal the decision. If they had appealed it, I simply don’t know what it would be like. He would’ve continued without question, but whether he would’ve had the same attitude that he had towards it, I simply don’t know. It would’ve been extremely exhausting for another three years. So that’s why we’re very, very pleased that the government didn’t appeal.”
On May 29, Veterans Affairs Minister Steven Blaney’s (Lévis-Bellechasse, Que.) office said that the government would discontinue the clawback. “Our government is taking action by going above and beyond the Federal Court ruling. We will harmonize our disability benefits at Veterans Affairs to reflect the planned changes to Service Income Security Insurance Plan,” the office said.
In the end, however, Mr. Manuge said the fight was a team effort. “Next to Perry [Gray] and Sean Bruyea, Pat Strogan was a huge supporter,” Mr. Manuge said. “What Pat showed me is that there are sincere honest and willing people to tell the truth as they experience it and see it. … The Hill Times was a big part of the puzzle because you guys gave all of us voice and covered the issue.”
Mr. Manuge said he also couldn’t have done it without the McInnes Cooper legal team, which represented the veterans pro-bono for the entire fight. Mr. Manuge said he doesn’t know how much the costs amounted to, but if he were to venture a guess, it would be “upwards of a $1-million,” considering that between the Justice Department, the Department of National Defence and the Department of Veterans Affairs, the federal government spent close to $500,000 fighting the issue in court.
“The resources I know that McInnes Cooper have brought to bear, I mean they hired MT&L Public Relations in Halifax to help me out with media and organize things and make sure we have a good easy and well crafted message. They designed the website for us, Leave No Vet Behind. We’ve been in multiple levels of court … so you know, huge money,” he said.
Mr. Manuge’s lawyer, Peter Driscoll, recently told CTV that the estimated repayment figure could reach $500-million. But he also said that the clawback provision has been in place since 1979 and that if the repayment calculation reaches that far back, the figure could be much higher. The two sides are still in settlement negotiations.
“As you can imagine, I’ve heard from a ton of veterans directly and some of them I had not heard from before and they are so very happy,” said Mr. Manuge, now a stay-at-home dad to his 17-month old daughter, Mekelle.
“I joked with Tracy that it was kind of nice to be just daddy today,” he said. “My daughter has been part of what’s kept me going. Another piece of why did I hang in there is because one day I hope she looks at what I’ve accomplished and is proud of her dad.”
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: Bea Vongdouangchanh
Dennis Manuge, Bravo Zulu!
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