The president of the local branch of the Royal Canadian Legion is optimistic changes can be made to the way veterans' issues are handled after a sit down with a local member of Parliament.
On Wednesday, Prince George-Peace River MP Bob Zimmer met with local veterans, as well as representatives from the Public Service Alliance of Canada and Veterans Affairs and city council, to hear concerns and find next steps for gaps in service caused by the 2012 closure of the local Veterans Affairs office.
"It's not so much to get the office open, it's to get some proper representatives in Prince George," said legion president Bruce Gabriel, who described the overall tone of the meeting as positive.
The current system of having to join the same line as job seekers, passport applicants, etc., at Service Canada with no specific attention doesn't work, Gabriel said.
r if you're sending somebody over to the corner and telling them 'there's a computer' and somebody's never been on a computer in their life," he said.
There was an understanding when the local office closed that there would be someone available at Service Canada who specialized in veterans' issues, said Zimmer. But he has since learned that hasn't happened.
"If it's not going well, I need to be alerted about it so I can do something about it. But I haven't received any questions, any requests for training or anything like that to know that there was an issue until (Wednesday)," Zimmer said. "I can only help the situation when I know about it. So now that I know about it, now I'm going to start trying to deal with it."
In a January report, Zimmer said he sent out a letter shortly after the local Veterans Affairs office closed asking them to contact his office if there were concerns about the delivery of service.
"To date, my office has received not one specific complaint from a veteran about the service they have received. In fact, the only specific complaints about service we have ever received were from two veterans unhappy with the now-closed Prince George Veterans Affairs office," the report said.
While Gabriel said he met with Zimmer last year as well as took a visit to Prince George-Cariboo MP Dick Harris's office, he also said he isn't surprised there haven't been specific visits from other veterans.
"These politicians, people don't trust them because we know that in Ottawa they have a line to toe and people know that," Gabriel said.
Where Zimmer and Gabriel readily agreed was that everyone involved wants to see veterans get the proper treatment.
"It's a work in progress," said Zimmer. "I said to a few people there, it's something you can never do enough of, it seems - you do something and there's always something else. I think our veterans deserve nothing less either, so we'll keep doing it."
