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"What is disappointing is that this particular attack may raise questions over a military retirement benefit and I do not think veterans deserve to have another measure called into question."
"The Harper campaign may be using the $18-million they raised last year to take aim at the brave men and women in uniform who serve our country so honourably."
"We're using your donations to build an economic vision that benefits all Canadians -- and to share it Canada-wide."
Retired lieutenant-general Andrew Leslie

Andrew Leslie is part of Justin Trudeau's new Liberal team, and may run in Ottawa-Orleans (CP) | CP

"[Leslie] may have followed all the rules except that of common sense."
"If DND (Department of National Defence) is reviewing the policy Andrew Leslie took advantage of, they should review the application of the Home Equity Assistance program which caused Brauer's family to lose over $75,000 when he was forced to move from Alberta to Halifax and made bankrupt."
Jack Harris, NDP defence critic

Property on Blenheim Drive in Rockliffe Park neighbourhood of Ottawa currently owned by retired Canadian Army commander Andrew Leslie.      Photograph by: James Park , Ottawa Citizen

A gift made in Liberal heaven, a Minister of National Defence incapable of resisting a critical stab at a former member of the Canadian Armed Forces who chose an alliance with the opposition Liberal party rather than making the choice to represent the Conservatives in the next election to be called in 2015. Choosing his words and his topic rather unwisely as it happened, in attacking a bargained-for, decades-old retirement entitlement.

And how swiftly did the retired lieut.-gen. use the gaffe to his advantage, emphasizing that he is a veteran, a descriptive that is geared to glow red-hot to the perception of ordinary Canadians who have heard unceasingly how this Conservative government is failing the health needs of Canada's veterans by closing small, seldom-used service depots whose fungible services are available, elsewhere, a cost-cutting move to bring government costs down to help balance the deficit.

He is yet another veteran ill-done by. Not merely inferring, but stating outright that charitable donations to the Conservatives for re-election support purposes are being used to harm veterans who "serve our country most honourably", claims that actually fly in the face of the Conservative record of support for the Armed Forces, as opposed to the constant cut-backs imposed by previously successive Liberal governments.

Emphasizing that the Liberal opponents of the current government have a much better use of charitable political donations headed their way. In their great-heartedness, aspiring to serve all Canadians from coast to coast to coast, well and equally in deference to the important role they will play in defeating this current government to replace it with the aspiring, ready-to-go! Liberals.

If the Conservatives often play a crude and transparent game of partisan politics, the Liberals are doing their best to outdo them in that sphere, as well. The Conservative government has ordered that $2.1-billion be 'saved' by the defence department through shrewd cut-backs that will not impinge (too obviously) on operations.

The richness of the DND-service contract that enables Mr. Leslie to take advantage of such a one-time retirement benefit is one of those perquisites that could aid transitioning lower orders of the military, but hardly seems required for someone of Mr. Leslie's financial stature. Which is exactly the message that the NDP critic was aiming to deliver, point on.

And which, in fact, Defence Minister Rob Nicholson emphasized by categorizing the perfectly legal and legitimate but eye-boggling costs associated with legal and real estate fees and other costs associated with the sale of a Rockcliffe Park home the Leslie family decided to sell, to move instead into a nearby home in the same area that is smaller, complementing their current familial status.

Mr. Nicholson emphasized the costs appeared "grossly excessive", and they are, but then we're talking about fairly costly real estate because this is, after all, Rockcliffe Park, and the retired lieut.-gen. was and is living in an upscale area reflective of his station in life. Which, come to think of it, doesn't really require the Canadian taxpayer to subsidize. We're all veterans, in one way or another, serving our country and ourselves.

And, as Mr. Nicholson pointed out, belated and related to his original assertions, that the policy was never meant for "generals to move between mansions within the same city". An unassailable argument, in point of fact, but an argument that seems pointedly unnecessary for the unfortunate representations of ill-humoured clumsy political crankiness it reveals.

A counterpoint to Mr. Leslie's self-defence was the circumstances referred to by Jack Harris, speaking of an estimated 146 military families who lost tens of thousands each between 2007 and 2010 when the houses they were forced to sell in depressed housing markets because of transfers caused them to lose much of their equity in those houses. They were subsequently rejected for full compensation.