Canadian Gulf War veterans deserve to be formally recognized as wartime veterans, a House of Commons committee has urged in its final report to the 44th Parliament.
Blacklock's Reporter says the classification of their service as “special duty” rather than “wartime service” has led to reduced disability benefits for the 4,458 Canadians who served in Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm.
“The Gulf War was objectively a war by any standard definition of the term,” the report stated. “It was also a war in the sense of the subjective experience of all those who participated in it.”
The Department of Veterans Affairs has argued that Gulf War service does not meet Canada’s legal definition of “wartime service” because the nation’s sovereignty or security was not directly threatened.
“It was a war in the legal sense, for Kuwait, but not for Canada,” wrote MPs in the report titled The Persian Gulf War Was A War.
“Anyone following events in Kuwait and the region during this period would have said this indeed was a war,” the committee concluded, pointing out that, despite the absence of direct threats to Canada, the conflict involved significant hostilities under the original United Nations mandate.
The war began with Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, and ended with a ceasefire on April 16, 1991. While Canadian forces did not suffer any combat deaths, the committee argued their contributions were no less deserving of recognition.
During a June 17 committee hearing, Assistant Deputy Veterans Affairs Minister Amy Meunier stated that the classification of military service is a process managed by the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces to determine eligibility for benefits.
“Do you consider the Persian Gulf War to be a war?” Conservative MP Blake Richards asked. Meunier responded, “It’s not defined as a war.”
“That pretty much tells us everything we need to know,” Richards said. “It’s the wrong answer frankly, but at least it’s an answer.”
The committee also recommended that Veterans Affairs consult with former service members about commemorative measures for the 35th anniversary of the ceasefire in 2026, ensuring their sacrifices are appropriately honored.
While the National War Memorial recognizes Canadian dead from the World Wars, Boer War, Korean War, and Afghan War, Gulf War veterans remain excluded — a fact that many MPs and veterans alike see as a continued oversight.