Vocal vet Roy Lamore keeps optimism in check

THUNDER BAY - Despite a pledge in the federal budget to reopen closed veterans affairs service centres, a local veteran isn’t getting too excited just yet.

“It’s good news but the proof is in the pudding, until we see it done then we can clap our hands,” Second World War veteran Roy Lamore said on Wednesday, one day after the Liberal government’s first fiscal framework was unveiled.

“It’s just something that we’ll have to wait and see.”

The Thunder Bay office was one of nine shuttered in 2014 by the former Conservative government, with the closest centres located in Winnipeg and North Bay.

During last year’s federal election campaign, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to reopen the service centres. On Remembrance Day, new Thunder Bay-Superior North MP Patty Hajdu said the local office would be restored in 2016.

In the two years since the closure, veterans have had to rely on telephone or internet to communicate with veterans affairs representatives.

That resulted in some veterans not even seeking out services and many of the ones who did reach out found the experience less effective, Lamore said.

“For a veteran going up there and explaining his problems, they would help and see what you look like, that’s number one,” he said of the old office. “Number two, they give you the advice you really need to see a doctor or whatever it might be. It’s just more comfortable.”

While the number of older veterans has gotten smaller as years have passed, there are former military members who have served in more recent conflicts such as Yugoslavia and Afghanistan or the current mission against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in the Middle East.

As the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder on soldiers becomes more well-known, it’s important for the government to not turn their backs to those who are willing to sacrifice their lives for their country.

“A military individual in any place going through a year or two years of this type of war, that’s going to be hard on them,” Lamore said.

“We’re going to get those new (veterans). The government has to protect them and keep them going.”

A message has been left with the Ministry of Veterans Affairs seeking more information on the reopening of the Thunder Bay office.