According to a Canada Revenue Agency appeals officer, the majority of PTSD cases “do not rise to the level of eligibility… because the impairment is episodic in nature.” That is why far too many Canadian veterans find themselves in battle mode when forced to fight, on yet another front for their benefits.

Kevin served under retired Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire, where he was a witness of the horrific genocide in Rwanda in 1994 that left him permanently traumatized by the crimes against humanity. Notwithstanding the carefully scripted medical evidence provided by his doctor, Kevin received a form letter denying his application because the CRA assessor determined that the trauma he suffers from did not meet the 90 per cent threshold. There was no excuse for such blatant disregard for the doctor’s evaluation of his patient when Kevin described his own unremitting pain in the following manner: “There are the times, I wish I could forget what I remember, and other times, I can’t remember what I have forgotten.” For them, the nightmares never end. Ask Lieutenant-General Dallaire, who still takes medications each day to relieve the symptoms of PTSD.

We are left with a sense of injustice wielded by a government that has lost its soul and crushed any dignity left when war veterans must struggle against all odds on the home front. Has it been a pernicious scheme all along to deny an entire class of people living with a serious mental illness the tax benefit designed to ease their financial burdens? I have no idea. In any case, I have never been able to understand the outright discrimination, for people like Jim, Kevin, and so many others, surely, just as deserving of our compassion as people with physical impairments. Where is the moral outrage and political will to do more to protect the rights of these individuals already stigmatized, labelled, shamed, judged, and held in contempt?