Excerpted Whole From NDP.ca Thu 15 Nov 2007
OTTAWA – Annie MacKenzie’s courageous 40 year fight for fairness has finally ended in victory today, NDP Veterans Affairs critic Peter Stoffer (Sackville-Eastern Shore) reported. After a 40 year delay, a settlement was finally reached late yesterday between the MacKenzie family and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
For that reason, Stoffer’s press conference scheduled for 12 PM in Ottawa has been cancelled. Stoffer had scheduled a press conference with Mackenzie to call on the Minister of Veterans Affairs to take immediate action.
“We are relieved that Annie MacKenzie’s case has finally been resolved. But it is shameful that it took 40 years to do so. It is horrible to think how many other veterans and their families have been denied fairness by Veterans Affairs and have since given up or past away, “ Stoffer said.
Annie MacKenzie, an 84 year old war veteran’s widow and her daughter Cheryl Deveaux traveled from Glace Bay, Nova Scotia to Ottawa to press the Harper government for fairness denied. A serious administrative error made by the Department of Veterans Affairs has prevented Mrs. MacKenzie from collecting her late husband’s disability pension since he died in 1968. Information about her husband’s disability was not transferred from his paper file to the Department’s computer database. After her husband passed away, she was denied benefits for Veterans Affairs because of this mistake and raised six children on less than $200 a month.
Stoffer announced that the NDP is calling on the Harper Conservatives to bring the (Veteran’s) Pension Act in line with legislation like that which guides the Canada Pension Plan, allowing the minister to take “remedial action as appropriate” in case of erroneous advice or an administrative error. Currently, the Pension Act only allows retroactive benefits up to five years.
“We are delighted to have played a role in forcing the Government to do the right thing for Annie MacKenzie. But without an immediate resolution, nothing is to stop fairness being denied to other deserving war veterans and their families. The NDP will continue to fight for fairness,” Stoffer said. http://www.ndp.ca/page/5894?refer=subtext
