Thirty-one.
That’s the number of widows and orphans of First World War veterans still receiving a government of Canada pension, says Blacklocks Reporter.
The number was provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs, 103 years after the Armistice.
“The average yearly payment is $10,757 or about $896 per month,” the department said in a statement.
Payments related to First World War service were paid in all provinces though the largest group of beneficiaries numbered eight in Ontario and seven in BC.
The average age of the beneficiary is 96.
Total disability pension expenditures were $311,953 a year.
“There are no widows or orphans receiving Veterans Affairs Canada disability benefits showing in our data that relate to service that predates the First World War,” the department said.
The last surviving member of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, John Babcock of Spokane, Wash., died in 2010 at age 109. Babcock volunteered with the 146th Battalion as a schoolboy and never saw combat.
Canada’s last highly decorated First War survivor, Milton Gregg of King’s County, N.B., died in 1978 at age 85. Gregg was awarded the Victoria Cross in 1918 for leading a raid on a German trench near Cambrai, France. He later served as Liberal Minister of Veterans Affairs and president of the University of New Brunswick.
Canada’s contingent of Second World War veterans is declining at the rate of about 4,700 a year, by official estimate.
“By the year 2030 there are expected to be fewer than 500 Second World War veterans living in Canada,” wrote staff.
Canada’s last Victoria Cross winner, Smokey Smith of Vancouver, died in 2005. Smith was cited for conspicuous bravery in the 1944 Italian campaign.
“With the eventual passing of the last living witnesses of the Second World War, there will be no one left to tell us first-hand about this defining time in our history,” the department said in an earlier statement.
“It becomes our duty, more than ever, to remember and honour their great sacrifices and their great achievements.”
Other old soldiers were George Ives of Aldergrove, B.C., last Canadian veteran of the 1899 Boer War. Ives died in 1993 at age 111. He had enlisted as a teenager and was the last living recipient of the Queen Victoria Medal.
Dr. Henry Boyd of Bobcaygeon, Ont., the last survivor of the 1885 Northwest Rebellion, died in 1959. He was 96.
Robert Reesor of Markham, Ont., last veteran of the 1866 Fenian Raids with the York Rangers, lived to 102 in 1944., Hiram Conk of Oneida, New York, last old soldier from the War of 1812, died in 1905. He was 105.
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