OTTAWA, Ont. - The Harper government's oft-repeated slogan of supporting the troops took several hits in the latest auditor general's report, which found injured ex-soldiers don't always get their entitled services and benefits.
Michael Ferguson looked at how National Defence and Veterans Affairs handled the transition to civilian life for more than 8,000 members released on medical grounds between 2006 and 2011.
The report found both departments were incoherent when communicating services, standards and expectations to the injured, and as a result many current military members and veterans did not get the expected care -- or had to wait for it.
Roughly 25 per cent of medically released soldiers did not have either case management services or plans offered to them by the military.
At Veterans Affairs, about 20 per cent of veterans identified as being a risk for not successfully returning to civilian life had no case supervision.
Almost five years after the Canadian Forces ombudsman railed against National Defence for shoddy record-keeping, Ferguson's audit levelled a similar complaint, saying the department does not have a consolidated database on injured members and key information was often missing in existing files.
