Who cares about veterans anyway? Grandstanding Liberal today no different from grandstanding Conservatives of twenty years ago.

I am so mad I could spit nails... to watch the six o'clock news today and see Liberal Member of Parliament Sean Casey (of Charlottetown no less) deploring the actions of the Conservative government is sickening. Where was he fifteen or eighteen years ago when his party was in power and did the same thing?

For those who might accuse me of being overly sympathetic to the party currently in power, they're no better. I once worked (volunteered, really) with Reform Party MP Peter Goldring in denouncing the actions of the Chretien government - much of this I previously documented. But once the Reform/Canadian Alliance/Conservatives got into power, it is clear that they opted to switch roles with their former foes and adopt the same sort of stance and plans of action.

To see opposition members stand up to "support" veterans and then do the same thing they once vehemently opposed should be called out and they should be held to account. The problem is, that never happens. Chretien said he'd kill the GST if elected. Canadians elected him and then he basically said he never said such a thing. Dalton McGuinty once said he wouldn't raise taxes - he became Premier and we all know how that worked out.

Stephen Harper's Reform Party stood tall against Liberals' treatment of veterans and now his Conservative Party of Canada government is doing the same thing.

I've always wondered if politicians see veterans and seniors as people who will die soon and get out of their hair, leaving them to govern for those who really matter - who those people are, I have no idea. The thing is, our aging population will continue supplying us with freshly-minted seniors and with what has gone on in the Middle East since 2001, we have a new generation of veterans who will age and eventually need our help more than they do today.

When will politicians learn? They're all too happy to send them off to defend us and our country, but when those who actually survive come back home, we wish they would just go away. That might not exactly be the way it is, but it sure as hell looks like it. I've written a letter to the editor to both the Ottawa Sun and the Ottawa Citizen. It may or may not get published... but if the lessons I've learned since the early 90's hold true, it won't matter anyway.

I won't forget. Neither should you.