OTTAWA - Hours after Gordon O'Connor insisted his department has paid the entire burial costs for troops killed in Afghanistan, the Defence Department said its casualty support section will review whether any families have been shortchanged.
"Officials will be calling families to make sure they haven't incurred any additional funeral costs," Marc Raider, a spokesman for National Defence, said late Monday.
Casualty support is the bureaucratic arm of the department that deals with the families of those killed overseas as well as co-ordinates the care and rehabilitation of wounded soldiers.
Earlier in the day, O'Connor contradicted his own officials and the families of at least two slain soldiers.
"Since I've been in office, I've directed the department to pay the full funeral cost of fallen soldiers," the minister said Monday in the House of Commons.
"And I also directed the department to review the previous Treasury Board policy set by the Liberals to come to a proper resolution and to line it up with current realities. We have been doing that since I've been in office. Any family that had to bury their loved ones is entitled to the full recompense for the funeral."
A spokeswoman for the Canadian Forces said late last week the military recently discovered that a family had to pay part of the cost of burying their son, who was killed in combat last year. Cmdr. Denise Laviolette did not identify the family.
A second family contacted by The Canadian Press said it too was forced to carry some of the cost in burying their son last year. The relatives asked not to be identified, saying it was too painful a topic to discuss in public.
On Monday, Laviolette urged the second family and any others who may have been short-changed to contact the department's director of casualty support.
Opposition parties quickly pointed to the discrepancy, saying they were outraged by the conflicting accounts on such a sensitive, emotional topic.
"He said categorically that since he's been minister, he's looked after families who've lost loved ones and paid the full cost.
Clearly that is not the case," said Ontario Liberal MP Dan McTeague.
"It's a very serious example of the minister being out of touch - either that or not understanding the full import of what he's just said.
"The department has acknowledged that there are families that have not in fact been paid. I'm at a loss. He's clearly out of line with his own department and out of line with the heroes and their families who've sacrificed so much."
If O'Connor ordered a review of the funeral stipend in the winter of 2006, NDP Jack Layton asked, why is the federal Treasury Board going to consider the matter on Thursday?
"This minister's incompetence has been seen before and it appears we're looking at it again in a particularly tragic context," Layton said following question period.
Unlike police officers killed in the line of duty, the families of soldiers face limits on how much taxpayers will cover. The 2007 Canadian Forces death and disability guide allots $4,765 in burial expenses to the families of serving soldiers, aircrew and sailors, when the average funeral bill in Canada is currently between $6,000 and $8,000. Cemetery plots or cremation urns, headstones and transportation for a select number of grieving relatives are also covered.
A staffer in the minister's office blamed "foot-dragging" by the bureaucracy for not getting the changes done sooner.
McTeague said the Conservatives should have acted more quickly as the number of casualties returning from Afghanistan began to rise.
"This is a very serious matter and falls on the heels of having to get this same minister and this same government to address the issue of pay for wounded soldiers," said McTeague referring to the controversy last fall, where wounded soldiers, flown out of Afghanistan for treatment, lost their danger-pay bonus. The Conservatives have since restored the pay.
The Defence Department says it will not cover the cost of flowers, donations, photos, register books, death notices in newspapers, and some other services related to funerals.
