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Actually not to split hairs but it is ALLOWANCES, not pay that is being cut. If you are no longer overseas, you no longer draw overseas pay. When a field unit in Canada goes on exercise they get field pay, when they return to their base no more field pay. Any questions?

   

I defeintely understand this from both sides of the coin.

On one hand I agree with Bart that rewarding someone's incompetence (scorpion sting) with combat pay probably would reduce unit morale. On the other hand, someone who is wounded in a firefight should receive some sort of extra compensation if his/her wounds require evacuation from the theatre. I think that they deserve to at least keep the tax break if it's a combat wound.

   

Although I am currently getting the overseas benifits, I am not currently in a theater of operations so dont get the tax free. I will when in the theatre. Having been there last year, I would like to point out that the amount was exagerated in the article. Secondly, if I fly home tomorrow, I dont get the extra allowances or the tax free. Nor should I. Although to the uneducated, it may seem cruel, once someone is injured or unable to complete his tour, they surrender these benifits. If it is due to injury, medical/veteran benifits take over. As for the fareness of it, the benifits/tax free status is strictly a means for compensating the absence from our normal NA standard facilities and the increased danger we face on a daily basis. Someone removed from theatre, does not face these hardships/risks.

   

That is quite a bit of money. Some might like to jump on them for taking it away but still if you are wounded sitting in a hospital bed somewhere is that dangerous? Unless the hospital gets blown up I suppose but in any case I think active soldiers should get extra pay for it encourages them to stay active. How much do soldiers make anyway? What is their regular pay?

   

   

This Liberal should be beaten about the head and face for trying to use injured troops for his own political purposes. I hope people in Canada are paying close attention to the 180 degree turn the Liberals have taken since losing power.

   

And they'll predictably turn another 180 degrees if they are returned to power.

   

Well i think we both agree that we didnt join for the money, and if it was then joining the militray combat arms for the paycheuqe parobably means that person has made the wrong career choice. I cant speak as to what the US Govt does for its service people, i suspect its far better than the Canadian Experience. Only jusr recently did overseas Canadian combat troops receive the tax-free status - i understand the US forces have had this for some time.

I can only speak from the CF view that the benfits from being a service member are relatively few, and when one has a family it is especially burdonsome when a person is wounded. So my thoughts turn towards thos who are wounded, especially when in Canada we have a senate full of useless idiots who are paid well over 6 figures to sit around all day and flap thier jowelly lips. Frankly i would rather have well cared for soldiers by protecting thier pay incentives than having old senators sitting around all stinking up the Senate with thier beer farts

   

No i understand the process, im just disagreeing with it. Its one of the things that drove me nuts aout the Navy is that the brass sometimes were so devoted to going by the book that they missed the human element.

I dont care if its allowances or not. they're men and women who defend us. they dont deserve to be treated as a cipher. they've been shot , hit by shrapnell and various other things. I can imagine the look of the pay-writers as they gleefully try to explain to a soldier in a wheel chair with a wound in his head the size of a golfball and his legs in casts after major surgery on why the government isnt going to pay him as much anymore because since he was wounded in combat, he can't go into combat anymore so therefore he's not getting combat pay anymore


It's this kind of circular logic that has almost destroyed Canadas military

   

If a soldier is that badly wounded that he cannot return to his job there are a number of venues available to him, ie. DVA, SISIP etc.

Allowances cease when the situation that is required for them ceases. As someone who was injured in Afghanistan in 2002 I have had to deal with DVA in reference to my injuries and am now drawing a medical pension. While the money is nice I would give it back in a heartbeat to be 100% again. But to tell me I would be entitled to overseas pay and danger pay when I am no longer overseas or in danger is asinine.

These troops are getting good medical care and have the support of the government and the people of Canada so I cannot agree with your assessment that they are being treated "as a cypher".

   

Watching Canada AM this morning Hillier was being interview and he alluded that DND is rethinking this policy. He stated (according to the reporter) off camera that DND is thinking of making it a "Re-hab" allowence once injured. I hope he does, laying in a Hospital bed facing months of rehab and to be told you don't deserve your danger pay as you look down at your torn to shreds leg is assinine.

   

Good grief there's a lot of bleeding hearts on this board..

2Cdo hit the nail on the head basically, and its right there in the article and very logical as well.

It really seems pretty basic to me. When they're injured & brought home, where is the hardship & risk? We can all cry we want about how injuries aren't 'easy' to deal with, but working in active duty overseas is not a piece of cake either... FAR from it.

Bart Simpson also hit the nail on the head -- If you get the same amount of $$ for getting injured so you can get out of duty, where's the incentive to watch your own and/or comrades ass? Where's the incentive to get yourself OUT of bed if by chance you do end up injured?

I think another thing that many perhaps are forgetting is that it is HARDLY likely that the soldiers serving overseas are going to need to be "told" that they get a paycut if they are removed from Afghanistan. This is likely something they are already aware of probably before heading out there.

Its not as if they're decreasing their salary, they're simply removing additional allowances. I don't know how I feel about the "rehab" allowance. Perhaps for truly serious injuries yes, but if not then all that would provide would be incentive to get injured & get paid extra for laying in bed.

Interesting that the ones who understand this the most seem to be the ones actively involved in the military & the bleeding hearts crying unfair aren't.

   

Valid point Bart. But these soldiers are they recovering in theatre, if so the should still be paid as being in theatre, if they are back on Canadian soil the pay stops. PERIOD

   

An article on the issue: Defence minister trying to fix danger pay problem
Updated Fri. Oct. 6 2006 3:59 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff


Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor and Canada's military commander said they are working to ensure soldiers continue to receive danger pay after they are injured.


"I've asked the senior military staff and department staff to look how we treat wounded soldiers from a compensation point of view and they're moving quickly to look at that challenge," O'Connor told reporters Friday.


Under the current rules, wounded soldiers who are removed from theatre can lose their more than $2,000 per month "operational allowances" within a few days.


O'Connor's comments followed a story in the Toronto Star Star about a soldier whose legs were smashed during a Taliban attack in Afghanistan on Tuesday.


Two soldiers were killed in the attack and five others were wounded, including Pte. Jeffrey Hunter, 23.


With two smashed legs and shrapnel wounds, Hunter was taken to the U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany for treatment. Just a few hours after he arrived he was told he no longer qualified for danger pay because he wasn't in theatre.


During an appearance earlier Friday on CTV's Canada AM, Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier said that was unacceptable.


"Yes, we have a problem," he acknowledged.


"We're going to fix it and we're going to fix it quickly. I've got a bunch of very smart, big-brained people and we're going to figure out how to look after those soldiers."


He said the issue came on his "radar scope" last week through conversations with soldiers.


Hunter's father was outraged that his son was told about his pay cut just hours after the devastating attack that killed two of his comrades.


It also caused him to question the support the military has for its wounded soldiers.


"He hadn't been there six hours," Bill Hunter, a retired 31-year veteran of the Toronto police, told the Star. "He's in a lot of pain, and I've got someone from the military going in and telling him they're not going to give him his danger pay....This is not right.


"He is going to have a long-time therapy, a lot longer than the six months he was sent away for in Afghanistan," Hunter said.


"Why aren't these kids getting danger pay?"


Although Hillier gave no specific details about Hunter's case, The Star reported that the defence department has the discretion to continue danger pay for an additional 25 days, and usually does. However, there is no indication Hunter will receive the extension.


Liberal MP Dan McTeague has been trying to change the practice, and accused the opposition of trying to mislead the public on the issue.


McTeague called the policy "insensitive" and argued that danger pay for wounded soldiers should continue until the date their tour was scheduled to end.


In total, 150 Canadian soldiers have been wounded and 39 have been killed since Canada first sent troops to Afghanistan in 2001.


The issue threatens another public relations storm on the Afghanistan issue for the Conservative government, which is facing rising opposition at home as the list of killed or injured soldiers continues to rise.


With files from The Canadian Press

   

Is he still in danger?

   

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