Hero denied funding for prosthetic limb by veterans affairs runs as a Conservative against Bill Blair

Capt. Kimberly Fawcett who is an air force captain, is now confirmed as the official Conservative Party candidate for the riding of Scarborough Southwest.

Last week, Fawcett lost a court challenge where the military refused to pay disability benefits for a 2006 traffic accident that claimed the life of her infant son and left her an amputee.

She say’s she’s getting involved in politics to help other veterans get the compensation they deserve.

“I went to Bill Blair three years ago to ask for his help and he turned me away,” Fawcett told CBC News. Blair, the former Toronto Police Chief, is the Trudeau government’s minister for border security.

“If he is not prepared to fight for someone like me or anyone else in our riding, then I am prepared to fight him for the job.”

For more than 10 years, Fawcett has been locked in a legal battle with the Ministry of Veterans Affairs and the Ministry of Defence. The federal government says that her accident did not occur while she was on duty – even though the trip was ordered by her commanding officer and part of a military-mandated family care plan.

Following the accident, Ottawa denied Fawcett coverage for the cost of her prosthetic limb. Despite this, Fawcett still returned to active duty after learning to walk again, even deploying to Afghanistan for a second time in 2008.

Fawcett had asked Blair to look into her case and act as a “conduit” of information with the federal government while the matter was under review by the ministry’s chief of staff.

She was told that nothing could be done because the matter was before the courts.

When asked for comment, Blair said he could not discuss the specifics of the case. “Out of respect for the privacy of my constituents, I do not comment on individual cases that are brought forward to me,” he said.

Her desire to run comes from a broad dissatisfaction with the Liberal government’s treatment of veterans and the administration of military programs, says Fawcett.

She worries about the fiscal sustainability of some of the Trudeau government’s spending decisions, fearing that the men and women of Canada’s Armed Forces may be the first to suffer in the eventual budget cuts.