PG Veterans Affairs Office to Re-open Monday
Prince George, B.C. – The Veterans Affairs office in Prince George will officially re-open Monday morning, with Veterans Affairs Minister Kent Hehr on hand to mark the occasion.
The Prince George office was one of nine which were closed by the former Conservative government in 2012 in an effort to move more services online and to Service Canada centres. The closures, which were met by protests from one side of the country to the other, also took down offices in Kelowna, Saskatoon, Brandon, Thunder Bay, Windsor, Sydney, Charlottetown and Corner Brook.
All of the offices are being re-opened, as was promised by Justin Trudeau in his successful bid to become Prime Minister in 2015.
The ceremony re-opening the Prince George office will take place at 9 o’clock Monday morning
Scott’s reaction to the re-opening not unpredictable. “I’m ecstatic,” he says “I’ve been basically the fellow who led the charge here in Prince George to get it back. Myself and Bruce Gabriel, we worked long and hard on it and we were very lucky to get the mayor and council on board and they made a pitch for it and so ya, I’m ecstatic.”
Scott adds “it’s long overdue. I’m the service officer for the branch, so I look after the poppy and I look after the veterans so that’s what that is about. I’ve been overworked basically since they closed that office because nobody’s looking after those veterans who, you know, we would be able to point to Veteran’s Affairs and say there’s the office down the street. So we’d have to do the work for them.”
“It’s nice to be able to do that, because veterans would not go to Service Canada, they just didn’t want to.”
Scott says the time he and others put in was all voluntary. “Oh yes, everything we do at the Legion is volunteer. So I spent a lot of time doing that (for the veterans) and so did other service officers, other legion members.”
Scott says that on top of the 9 a.m. re-opening announcement on Monday there will be a noon ceremony at the cenotaph in front of City Hall.
Comments
Where will the office be located?
I was wondering the same thing
So instead of accessing services at the readily accessible government building, now there will be the added cost of a different office to provide exactly the same services. Yeah, that sounds sensible. Not.
Maybe it could be located in Zimmer and Doherty’s constituency office. We are already paying for the office space and there is absolutely nothing going on there.
Representatives of Zimmer and Doherty office where available at the Legion every Thursday and people could and did go to their offices.
This is one of those things the liberals do to look good but it doesn’t have any substance. Veterans could have been served just as well by having staff in a currently operating federal government office.
Dirtman I can appreciate your position on cost sensibility and services but being the grandson of a world war 2 veteran who tries to access services that should be provided to him the difficulty he has In trying to acces these services since the office closed here in pg is beyond ridiculous. There is no reason why veterans who sacrificed more then we can ever imagine should have to wait months if not an entire year(s)
to get what he or she is rightfully owed. My position is obviously biased but if we can have an office that provides services for lower income populations or people with financial difficulties because they don’t want to or having difficultly finding work then why can’t we have an office that focuses on providing faster services to our aging veteran population. Theses veterans are not getting younger and if we can provide faster services and decisions because we have experienced and trained professional in a dedicated office then does it not Make sense to do this? As mentioned above these men and women have sacrificed more and seen more then we would ever imagine and if we could provide an opportunity to have decisions made faster to make their lives better this a a step we need to take.
Just more fluff and no substance from the dear leader. Client list is small and help is but a phone call away and representatives of veterens affairs traveled to PG. Also assistance from Zimmer and Doherty’s office.
Dear leader 2 spend spend like dear learder 1. Took 30 years to get out of Mark 1 debt.
A lot of you people can get bought off so easy.
Thanks again to our reclaimed Canadian Government and our leader that says what he means and means what he says . Stevie infamously said ” don’t listen to what politicians say but watch what they do “. that may have been the only truthful thing he has ever said . #goodriddanceharper .
I remember when the Cons first announced the closure of the veterans affairs office here in Prince George, they said it would result in “better” service for our veterans. I suppose they though we were that stupid and gullible!
Nice to have a government that backs up its promises with action… thanks Liberals!
Was service reduced?
Have not yet gotten rid of the one time disability payout over a pension yet. Maybe its coming who knows.
Justin gets the thumbs up today.
So, I repeat–Where will this office be located? Address would be nice–and helpful too.
To all the Harper minions… This is something we didn’t see while Harper was PM.. A PM that actually delivers on a election promise. Strange using it?
Who cares? He delivered on a promise that doesn’t do anything but waist money. You are happy about wasting money?
P Val, please tell us about Justin’s election “budget and deficit” promises and projections”!
Here we have P Val, Ataloss, and JGalt going at it again with their anti Harper tripe. As we well know two of their favorite bitches about Harper were the Prorogation of Parliament, and Omnibus Bills.
So lets look at these two issues.
The Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1968-69 was on omnibus bill that introduced major changes to the Canadian Criminal Code. The bill was a massive 26-page, 120-clause amendment to the criminal law and crfiminal procedure of Canada. Introduced and passed by the Pierre Trudeau Government and passed in 1969.
When, in 2002, Governor Gen Adrienne Clarkson accepted Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s advice to prorogue parliament, allowing the latter to avoid tabling a reort to the House of Commons public accounts committee regarding the sponsorship scandal that, at the time, surrounded the Chretien’s party. After parliament was again summoned, invetgations into the scandal continued, Chretien stepped down as prime minister in December of the following year, and the Liberal Government was reduced to a minority government in the subsequent election of 2004.
So there you have it. The Liberals used prorogation and omnibus bills long before Harper.
So put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Palpou states; “so the Liberal’s 1968-69 Omnibus bill a was massive 26 page, 120-clause amendment.”
“Fast-forward five decades and omnibus bills are now being championed by the Conservatives, who have passed eight of them since winning a majority government in 2011.”
“In 2012, the Conservatives rammed the Jobs and Growth Act (Bill C-45) and the Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act (C-38) through Parliament with almost no time for meaningful debate. With a combined length of “900 pages”, they contained over “1,200 clauses” which amended 135 unrelated federal laws affecting everything from nuclear safety to judges’ pensions to the Seeds Act.”
http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/some-kind-of-monster-a-brief-history-of-harpers-big-fat-omnibus-bills-264
Palopu… you do live in your own la, la, Conservative reality don’t you?
There you go again Palopu ,attributing your thoughts to mine . Those two issues are down the list along ways for me . At the top of my list is how he lavished himself and his cronies with all the best of food and lodging , even in the arctic . Today there are twelve year old children in the arctic that are undersized from malnutrition. They have only known months without Harper .
For those of you that are looking for a job or a career change, I took a few minutes to google the job posting(s) that will need to be filled by the re-opening of this Prince George office. The posting included the following work schedule:
DAILY WORK SCHEDULE:
– unlock back door, turn on lights
– make coffee, unlock front door
– drink coffee, read local newspaper
– watch clock
– phone personal friends to discuss personal activities over the weekend
– have a nap
– drink more coffee
– watch the clock
– check Facebook
– COFFEE BREAK, lock front door, put up “be back in 15” sign, go pee
– pour another coffee, unlock front door, take down “be back in 15” sign
– check Facebook
– watch the clock
– have a nap
– read various posts on Opinion 250
– lock front door, put up “closed until 1:00” sign
– LUNCH BREAK
– unlock front door, take down “closed until 1:00” sign
– make fresh coffee
– snooze at desk while wearing off big lunch
– check Facebook
– watch the clock
– play Solitaire
– lock front door, put up “back in 5” sign, go to restroom
– unlock front door, take down “back in 5” sign
– call various personal friends
– think about what to cook for dinner
– COFFEE BREAK, lock front door, put up “be back in 15” sign
– unlock front door, take down “back in 15” sign
– check Facebook
– have a nap
– resume last game of Solitaire
– pull local newspaper out of recycle bin and start crossword puzzle
– get more coffee
– do crossword puzzle while making personal cellphone texts and calls
– rinse coffee cup and coffee maker
– lock front door
– turn of lights and lock back door on exit
PLEASE NOTE: all job applicants are to understand that there may be, on very very extremely rare occasions either calls to the office or visits to the office by veterans or family members of veterans. On these rare occasions, applicants will be required to actually do some work.
This is a unionized position that includes extremely generous benefits as well as a gold plated tax-payer subsidized defined-benefit pension plan.
Hmmm, maybe I should go apply for one of these retirement positions! I could use the extra sleep!
But would you be willing to cut down on your 250 time by that much ?
Hmmm, anything is possible!
After all, Canada even elected Bozo the Clown for PM!
Ataloss. To try and hang the malnutrition problem in the Artic on Harper is somewhat disingenuous. This has been a problem for many, many years. I would suggest that Harper’s handling of the problem is not better or worse than the Liberals.
All Canadians and the Federal Government over the years can share the blame for how these people have been treated over the years. So lets not try and make Harper the orge on this issue.
The causes of malnutrition in the North are many and very complicated, not withstanding the lack of a correct diet.
Transportation costs are atrocious, hunting and fishing is now more difficult, the cost of rifles, ammunition, gasoline, transportation, etc; is very high, and as a result there is less hunting for food.
The Yukon, NWT, Nunavut, all get Federal money transferred to them for education, health, etc the same as other Provinces, and at the end of the day the well being of these Provinces and Territories are the responsibility of the various Governments in power.
The formula for money tranfers was changed a few years ago and as a result there was less money transferred to these area’s by the Federal Government. The **new** Liberal Government when asked if they would restore funding dodged the question and referred the issue to a committee.
I agree that there has to be a solution to this problem, and wait with baited breath for you to supply one.
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