Veterans Affairs Minister Jill McKnight speaks during a House of Commons veterans affairs standing committee meeting on March 25. [CPAC]

Care over profits: VAC’s privately contracted rehab program under review

STORY BY RICHARD FOOT

By 2024, Mark Bennett had retired from a 27-year career as an army mechanic and was finally getting the help he needed to heal from his longstanding service injuries.

“I have shoulder, neck and back injuries as well as PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder],” Bennett told Legion Magazine from his home in Chamcook, N.B.

“Working on large vehicles and equipment is pretty rough on the body. I was also in a rollover tank accident where the vehicle flipped—myself and a couple of others were injured—we were training to go to Bosnia.”

Bennett’s rehabilitation was going smoothly under the guidance and funding of Veterans Affairs Canada. He was being cared for by a team of trusted therapists when he was suddenly transferred to the department’s privately contracted rehab program, run by a company called Partners in Canadian Veterans Rehabilitation Services (PCVRS).

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Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean presents William MacDonald with the Star of Military Valour on April 4, 2008. [Valour in the Presence of the Enemy]

WW II’s HMCS Sackville to be formally recommissioned into the RCN

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

HMCS Sackville, the last-surviving Flower-class corvette of the Second World War, will soon be recommissioned into the Royal Canadian Navy, a symbolic gesture in recognition of its historic service.

Spearheaded by the Canadian Naval Memorial Trust (CNMT), which has long preserved the now-museum ship, and facilitated by the RCN’s own commemorative endeavours, the ceremony will take place by the Halifax waterfront on May 15, 2026—exactly 85 years after Sackville’s launch.

The roughly 62-metre (205-foot) Sackville, despite its relatively small size compared to other warships of the time, belonged to a class of vessels that British Prime Minister Winston Churchill dubbed the “cheap and nasties” of the Atlantic campaign. Far from perfect in design and capabilities, corvettes nevertheless acted as workhorses on the high seas, escorting Allied convoys and engaging German U-boats. Sackville was no exception on both counts.

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