Trudeau’s government just plain cruel

Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence Minister Kent Hehr responds to a question during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Thursday, April 14, 2016.

One of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s favourite boasts about his Liberal government – perhaps his very favourite – is its great compassion for ordinary Canadians.

Ordinary Canadians who are Thalidomide survivors, disabled veterans, diabetics, retail employees and small business owners would beg to disagree.

On Tuesday Kent Hehr, Trudeau’s Disabilities Minister, apologized for appalling comments he made to Thalidomide survivors, who suffer from life-altering birth defects due to a pregnancy drug wrongly thought to be safe before it was banned in 1962.

According to Fiona Sampson, spokesperson for the Thalidomide Survivor Task Group, when they met with Hehr on Oct. 19 asking for help, he told them:

“Everyone in Canada has a sob story. Lots of people have it bad in Canada – disabled people, poor people, not just you”; “Well, you don’t have it as bad today as adults as you did when you were kids,” and, given their shortened lifespans, “So, you probably have about 10 years left now. That’s good news for the Canadian government.”

Sampson also accused Hehr of touching a member of her group in an “unwelcome” way, “physical contact that violated her personal space.”

Hours later, Hehr apologized for his first two remarks, claiming they had been “misconstrued”, denied referring to their shortened lifespans as good news and said he didn’t recall touching anyone, but if he did it was accidental and he apologized.

What Hehr admitted to was disgraceful conduct for a minister who represents the disabled in Trudeau’s cabinet, especially one confined to a wheelchair resulting from a drive-by shooting in 1991, in which he was a bystander.

On Monday, injured veterans promised the restoration of lifelong military pensions by Trudeau during the 2015 election campaign lost their case before the B.C. Court of Appeal, in which they were opposed by the Trudeau government, which claims it will restore the pensions, but more than two years later hasn’t done so.

They vowed to fight on.

Also on Monday, Kimberley Hanson, director of federal affairs for Diabetes Canada, accused the Canada Revenue Agency of lying to diabetics needing specialized treatment about tightening the rules under which they can qualify for the $1,500 disability tax credit.

Hanson said the CRA feigned surprise about complaints when hundreds of diabetics were suddenly cut off from the credit, arguing the rules hadn’t changed. But Hanson said CRA staff were effectively advised in a May 2 e-mail that most diabetics would no longer qualify for the credit, even if they previously had and even if a doctor or nurse vouched for them.

The Trudeau government says there’s been no change in CRA policy and denies it lied. Before that, the CRA came under fire for its now-aborted attempt to tax employee discounts, such as the price break a retail employee might get for buying clothes from the store where she works, before the Trudeau government backed off, claiming CRA bureaucrats acted on their own.

Trudeau and Finance Minister Bill Morneau enraged small business owners across Canada with their controversial tax reform proposals, after Trudeau described “a large percentage” of small businesses as tax dodges for the rich, which his government’s own statistics refuted.

They’ve since backed down in the face of public anger, but the Canadian Federation of Independent Business warns they haven’t made their revised rules clear, even though they take effect Jan. 1, which could cause chaos for small businesses.

Trudeau’s government compassionate towards ordinary Canadians? Only in Trudeau’s mind.

http://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-trudeaus-government-just-plain-cruel