Canadian war veterans are upset that concerns over a snap election have forced the Prime Minister and 12 MPs from all parties to cancel their plans to travel to Europe for VE-Day ceremonies.

The Canadian delegation was to have visited the Netherlands beginning May 7, accompanying about 2,000 Canadian veterans. In an announcement Monday, the Prime Minister's Office said his plans have changed. The MPs' announcements followed.

George Blackburn, an 88-year-old veteran who helped liberate Holland, thinks politicians will pay for pulling out of the trip.

"There are a hell of a lot of votes there that they're going to be alienating," Blackburn told CTV News.

Cliff Chadderton, chairman of the 51-member National Council of Veteran Associations, says Canada's vets have been delivered "the worst of all insults."

"What a shame that The Year of the Veteran -- 2005 -- should be celebrated by what can only be called a mockery engineered by our own prime minister," Chadderton wrote in a statement released following the announcement from the Prime Minister's Office.

Explaining his reaction in an interview with CTV's Canada AM Tuesday morning, the War Amps CEO condemned the decision.

"All of a sudden there's a change," Chadderton said, recalling promises from the PMO that Martin would be in there on May 8. "He's riding on the backs of the Canadians who really fought in Holland, that's what he's doing."

Commenting on the decision, PMO spokesperson Melanie Gruer said Monday that it was made "to ensure that the prime minister is here at home and available to Parliament," in light of opposition threats to force an election.

But Chadderton says putting electoral politics over historic ties will be hard for the Dutch to fathom.

"Our prime minister stays home because of politics, I don't think they'll understand it."

"We're too close to Holland, we did too much, we lost too many men," he added, mindful of the 7,600 Canadians who died there during the war.

Ontario high school student Allyson Kenny, who will be among the Canadian delegation in Holland on May 8, says she's "quite sad" the prime minister won't be there with her.

"We're going to be there and I think we're going to be able to carry the torch," Kenny told Canada AM. "We'll try to fill the prime minister's shoes as best we can."

Martin's European trip was to have lasted three days, but now coincides with a series of looming potential Commons crises.

Should the government face a parliamentary test on its budget plan or an opposition non-confidence motion, as expected, every vote would count.

Governor General Adrienne Clarkson has been asked to make the trip to Apeldoorn and Moscow, where she will head the Canadian delegation at ceremonies commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Dutch and Soviet liberation during the Second World War.