Prince George, BC – It’s not a lofty goal in the grand scheme of things, but it is certainly a worthy one…

The Last Post Fund is hoping to raise $300-thousand dollars in the BC/Yukon region as part of a three-month national campaign to generate awareness and money to ensure that no eligible Veteran is deprived of a dignified funeral due to insufficient funds at the time of his or her death.

The LPF has been around for more than 100 years.  It began as a grassroots organization and then morphed into a third party agency, distributing funds from Veterans’ Affairs Canada for funerals and military gravestones, according to VAC rules.

However, the Fund’s Vice-President (West) Major-General (ret’d), Ed Fitch, says the VAC funding has been frozen at $3600 for a funeral since 1995, falling well short of the cost of services today.  In 2001, Veterans’ Affairs also changed the ‘means test’ for Veterans who would be eligible – from an estate value of $24-thousand dollars at time of death, down to $12-thousand dollars.  In addition, Fitch says only a small percentage of Modern Day Veterans (post-Korea) are eligible for the VAC coverage – just those in receipt of an annuity or on pay out for injury. 

The Major-General says that amounts to about 1,000 of the approximately 600-thousand Modern Day Veterans.  With an average age of 58 years among MDV, Fitch says that gives rise to an estimated 400 cases per year of indigent Veterans requiring assistance to have a dignified funeral and burial.  "That’s a very small percentage of Veterans – most do quite well in life – but some are unlucky, or it may be the after-effects felt long after their military service and they’re not as fortunate as others," he says.  "Those are the ones that we’re there to help."

Members of the Last Post Fund have been lobbying the government to address these issues for more than a decade.  And Fitch says they will continue to do so, but he says the fundraising campaign is an effort to get back to the grassroots movement that started the LPF.  "We can’t satisfy ourselves that we’re doing our job just because we’re lobbying the government," he says.  "We started as an organization that raised donations from the public to look after Veterans and we firmly believe the public cares about this, cares about their Veterans, and would not want to leave a Veteran in the indignity of a pauper’s funeral, or worse."

"So we’ll use the donation money to fill in where the Veteran’s Affairs money is inadequate." 

The ‘In Memory of Our Veterans’ Campaign launched at the beginning of the month and will run into May.  Major-General Fitch says those involved are coming up with a number of initiatives to generate funds.  He says, "Every idea is a good idea."  For more information on the campaign, or to donate, click here.