I don't know what it is

1. Court sides with nurses
The Leader-Post (Regina)
Fri Nov 19 2010
Page: D9
Section: News
Byline: Don Butler
Dateline: OTTAWA
Source: Postmedia News
Nurses employed by the Canada Pension Plan could be in line for a big payday after the Federal
Court quashed a human rights tribunal decision that denied them compensation for decades of
gender discrimination.
In a decision released this week, the court ruled the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal erred in
law when it refused to award the nurses compensation for lost wages in 2009. It also said the
tribunal breached the nurses' right to natural justice by denying them compensation for pain and
suffering.
The court ordered the tribunal to strike a new panel to assess, in a proper manner, the nurses'
claims.
The finding opens the door to a substantial monetary award for the 413 nurses, since the tribunal
has already ruled that the government's discriminatory practices date back to 1978.
In 2007, the tribunal found the nursing group, which is 95 per cent female, performs substantially
similar work as a group of predominantly male doctors. Both assess the eligibility of applicants
for Canada Pension Plan disability benefits.
But the nurses earn half as much as the doctors and aren't even treated as medical professionals.
Based on that, the tribunal ruled the government had discriminated against the nurses on the
basis of their sex.
But in a 2009 decision, the tribunal declined to order compensation, saying an expert witness for
the nurses had failed to reliably quantify the size of the pay differential between them and the
doctors. That, said the court, was an error in law.
"The difficulty in determining the amount of the loss cannot be used as a reason to refuse to
make an award," it said. "The tribunal has the duty to assess the lost income or wage loss on the
material before it, or refer the issue back to the parties to prepare better evidence."
In 2009, the tribunal also awarded money for pain and suffering to just two of the nurses, saying
the others had presented no evidence that established their claim to such an award.

2. But the tribunal had earlier informed the nurses it had decided to award pain and suffering
money, and no further evidence was needed. "By explicitly telling the parties that no additional
evidence was required, the tribunal breached the complainants' right to natural justice and fair
hearing by then relying upon a lack of evidence to find against them on pain and suffering," the
court said.
Laurence Armstrong, the nurses' lawyer, said his clients are "delighted" by the ruling. The onus
is now on the government, he said, to explain to the new tribunal panel why compensation for
lost wages shouldn't be paid as far back as 1978.
Ottawa Citizen
Edition: Final
Story Type: News
Length: 434 words
Idnumber: 201011190091
Former police officer who faced Serbian
mobs now fights for benefits; 'Civilian'
officers are denied same rights given to
military and RCMP, writes Richard Foot.
The Ottawa Citizen
Fri Nov 19 2010
Page: A6
Section: News
Byline: Richard Foot
Source: Postmedia News
For nine months Constable Mel Birmingham dodged bullets, grenades and rioting mobs in
Kosovo. Then he came home to face another kind of battle -- a decade-long fight for the veterans
benefits he says he's been denied by the federal government.
Birmingham is a retired Nova Scotia municipal police officer, one of thousands of non-RCMP
officers from across the country who have served on NATO and United Nations missions for
Canada.
But unlike members of the RCMP or the military, "civilian" police officers who are physically or
mentally injured on foreign missions receive none of the health and pension benefits paid out to
wounded vets by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

3. Birmingham says he and others like him are being discriminated against by a government that is
only too happy to accept their services overseas, but ignores them once they come home,
insisting that any support must come from their own police forces.
"The government of Canada has to recognize civilian police officers as equal partners in this," he
says, "and give them the benefits and compensation they equally deserve."
Birmingham spent five years in the Canadian navy before joining the Cape Breton Regional
Police service.
In 2000 he volunteered, with dozens of other officers from across the country, for a nine-month
tour of duty in Kosovo. Birmingham was dispatched to a volatile community to train police
officers, but he and the foreign police officers he led ended up trying to impose order instead. He
was injured on the mission during a Serbian riot, when someone threw a cobblestone at his head.
He came home with severe, recurring headaches, and post-traumatic stress.
Still, he continued to work as a police officer. In 2004 he and another officer swam into the
Atlantic Ocean to save a suicidal man from drowning -- for which Birmingham was later
awarded the Medal of Bravery by the Governor General.
About a year later, Birmingham's Kosovo injuries forced him to retire, and he has been fighting
the federal government for benefits ever since.
The government relies heavily on municipal and provincial police volunteers to staff Canada's
overseas military missions, and will almost certainly continue to do so when the Afghan mission
transforms into a strictly training program in 2011.
Of the 200 Canadian police officers now on NATO and UN missions, roughly 70 per cent come
from non-RCMP forces, says the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Illustration:
• Colour Photo: Vaughan Merchant, Postmedia News / Mel Birmingham can't get benefits
despite being injured during Kosovo stint.
Edition: Final
Story Type: News
Length: 394 words
Idnumber: 201011190065
How retirement at 67 helps younger workers
Toronto Star
Thu Nov 18 2010

4. Page: B2
Section: Business
Byline: James Daw Toronto Star
Next year will be the last before Canadians start to collect less from the Canada Pension Plan if
they retire before age 65.
The percentage lopped off pensions started as early as age 60 will be increased gradually
between 2012 and 2016. At the same time, the bonus for pensions started later will be increased.
It's a small step, but in the right direction.
Encouraging workers to delay retirement will help relieve the burden on young workers, who
face having to help support twice as many seniors past the age of 65 by 2035.
But this concession to fairness is too little and too late for a pair of Ontario political scientists,
who point to other developed nations having agreed sooner to gradually raise the age of
retirement.
Canada moved sooner to increase Canada Pension Plan contributions to build up a large reserve
fund. Unfortunately, that might not be enough.
So, after conferring with the chief actuary for the CPP, Martin Hering of McMaster University
and Thomas Klassen of York University are calling for a later retirement age, too.
"Projections from the chief actuary show that a gradual increase in the normal retirement age
from 65 to 67 (and of the earliest retirement age from 60 to 62) between 2012 and 2023 would
create policy flexibility for a number of different choices," they write in a new paper released
this week by the Mowat Centre for Policy Innovation.
"A retirement age increase leads to a more balanced distribution across generations of the costs
of population aging than a contribution rate increase," they argue.
Payroll deductions could be reduced by nearly 8 per cent, or a maximum of $167 at 2010 income
levels. Future benefits could be increased at no extra cost, or held the same to guard against
having to increase payroll deductions later.
The associate professors assumed that 40 per cent of workers - mainly those with employer-
sponsored pension plans - would opt to collect CPP benefits at 62, 50 per cent at or before 67 and
less than 5 per cent at later ages.
"Workers who plan to retire at 65 could still do so if they accept a permanent actuarial reduction
of their pension by 14.4 per cent (compared with 12 per cent for those who now collect CPP two
years early)," they note.

5. The professors argue that an age increase would ensure younger and older generations would
share the cost of an aging population.
Note, however, that their proposal would not be fully implemented until near the 67th
anniversary of 1959, the year Canada had a record 479,000 births.
So, true to form, baby boomers who have already had it easier winning the best jobs and best
pensions would be less affected than the younger baby boomers. Also the proposal would be
harder on low-income workers, who tend to die sooner than those with higher incomes.
The professors suggest this inequity for low-income workers could be addressed by raising the
retirement age for private pension plans, or by changing Old Age Security pensions.
A reduced Old Age Security could be paid at 62, and an unreduced pension at 67, to parallel
CPP, they suggest. They do not note, however, that Old Age Security, as now designed, includes
a tax-free Guaranteed Income Supplement that would help low-income workers by topping up
their CPP benefits and lack of other savings.
Later retirement and an income cap for Old Age Security were proposed in the early 1990s. But
former Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien squelched these ideas while fighting off separatists
in Quebec.
Don't expect our current finance ministers to talk about the professors' ideas when they emerge
from a meeting Dec. 20 to discuss an increase in CPP benefits and contributions.
© 2010 Torstar Corporation
Edition: ONT
Length: 598 words
Idnumber: 201011180164
Let people decide if retirement age should
rise: report; Public debate urged on options:
higher CPP contributions or making 67 the
qualifying age
The Globe and Mail
Wed Nov 17 2010
Page: A7
Section: National News

6. Byline: Bill Curry
Dateline: OTTAWA
OTTAWA -- In the midst of a national debate on pension reform, it's the option no party in
Parliament wants to talk about.
Raising the qualifying age for full CPP benefits beyond the current 65 is hardly a political
winner. Yet a new report points out that retirement ages are on the rise around the world and that
the change should also be considered here.
Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, who rejects the idea, is working with the provinces to
increase benefits through "modest" increases to Canada Pension Plan contributions.
Political scientists Martin Hering and Thomas Klassen argue in a report for the Mowat Centre for
Policy Innovation that increasing contribution rates is not popular either and so Canadians should
be offered a choice.
"If forced to choose between raising the retirement age or a contribution increase, it is uncertain
where public opinion would settle," they write in a report that looks at raising the current
qualifying age for full benefits from 65 to 67. "A public conversation on these real options needs
to begin immediately."
Pension expert Keith Ambachtsheer of the Rotman International Centre for Pension Management
said he agrees Canadians should be debating whether 65 is still the best age for the program.
"Given that we're talking about pension reform, I think they're absolutely right to say 'Why the
hell are we not talking about that dimension of it?'" he said.
The report questions why Canada's politicians are silent on the question, particularly as Ottawa
and the provinces are deep into plans for the first CPP reforms since the mid-1990s.
That mid-1990s reform, which increased contributions, is widely credited for putting Canada
ahead of other countries in ensuring its pension plan is well funded for the long term. However,
Ottawa and the provinces acknowledge more needs to be done because many Canadians are still
not saving enough for retirement.
Finance ministers for Ottawa and the provinces are scheduled to talk pension reform next month
in Kananaskis, Alta. According to the Mowat Centre report, there are several reasons why
increasing the eligibility age should be considered:
Everyone else is doing it
Australia passed a law in 2009 raising the age from 65 to 67, which will be fully implemented in
2024. France passed a law this year raising the retirement age from 65 to 67 and early retirement
from 60 to 62, which will be phased in by 2021. The United States agreed to raise access to

7. social security from 65 to 67 in 1983 in a slow change that won't be complete until 2025. This
week a bipartisan White House budget commission recommended a further increase to 69.
Canadians are living longer
When CPP was launched in 1966, those who retired at 65 could expect to live another 13.6 years.
In 2010, 65-year-olds can expect another 17.9 years.
Cost
Using data from the CPP's chief actuary, the authors say a two-year increase phased in by 2050
would reduce CPP expenditures by about $15-billion a year and increase contribution revenues
by $5-billion annually.
Benefits
There would be less pressure on governments to increase CPP contribution rates. It would also
add workers to what is expected to be an increasingly tight Canadian labour market.
The political reaction
The idea appears to be a non-starter. "This is not on the table," said a spokesperson for Mr.
Flaherty. Liberal finance critic Scott Brison said a better option is his party's proposal for a
supplemental, voluntary CPP. NDP finance critic Thomas Mulcair said he supports incentives to
encourage those who can to work beyond 65, but said a mandatory move would unfairly target
the poor and those who work in manual labour.
© 2010 CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Length: 587 words
Idnumber: 201011170061
Is 70 the new 65?; Canada must catch up on trend to
raising retirement age
Calgary Herald
Wed Nov 17 2010
Page: E6
Section: Calgary Business
Byline: Jonathan Chevreau
Column: Comment
Source: Financial Post
Canada has become a "laggard" in the worldwide trend toward raising retirement ages, a new
study says, and needs to increase the CPP eligibility to 67 from the current age of 65.

8. The Canada Pension Plan eligibility should increase gradually, while the earliest age for
receiving reduced CPP benefits would move up to 62 from the current 60, says Tuesday's report
by the University of Toronto's Mowat Centre.
The faster the changes are adopted, the greater the fiscal savings to the government, write Martin
Hering and Thomas Klassen in Is 70 the New 65, Raising the Eligibility Age in the Canada
Pension Plan.
Part of their rationale is that similar changes have already been adopted in the U.S., U.K.., Spain
and Germany: the latter two to much protest.
"Canada has become a laggard," the paper notes, and the government has been "remarkably
silent on the issue."
In the U.S., the decision to raise the eligibility age from 65 to 67 was made in the early 1980s but
implementation began only in 2003 and will be fully phased in by 2025. In 2007, the U.K.
started to gradually raise the retirement age from 65 to 68, the paper notes. Germany raised it
from 65 to 67 and bumped up early eligibility from 62 to 63. last year, Australia also moved its
"Age Pension" age from 65 to 67.
All Canadian provinces have eliminated contractually mandated retirement at age 65 and while
employees under federal jurisdiction face mandatory retirement at 65 the government this
summer announced plans to ban that practice, the paper says.
The 2007 federal budget introduced Phased retirement to let employers pay partial pensions
while simultaneously accruing pension benefits, and delayed by two years the final age by which
individuals can contribute to rrSPs: from 69 to 71.
In 2009, federal and provincial finance ministers agreed to discourage early CPP benefits by
raising the early-benefit reduction from 6% to 7.2%. It also made it more attractive to delay
receiving CPP benefits by raising benefits for late pension receipt (after 65) from 6% to 8.4%.
Mssrs. Hering and Klassen engaged the CPP's chief actuary to estimate the fiscal impact of the
gradual two-year delay, assuming such a program would begin in 2012 and be phased in over 12
years -i.e. by two months per year.
Those who turn 60 in 2012 would be eligible for a reduced pension at 60 years plus two months
and a full pension at 65 years plus two months. Those who reach 60 in 2023 could take early
reduced CPP benefits at 62 and a full unreduced pension at 67.
The paper cites earlier studies that found two thirds of citizens would oppose such a scheme, but
other studies found similar opposition to the idea of increasing contribution rates. The Germans
and British were more accepting when they understood there would be a long transition period.

9. Pension consultant Greg Hurst says a similar plan in Canada would go "a long way to solving
both private and public pension funding challenges ... People live much longer now than they did
when the concept of "normal" retirement at age 65 was first formulated.
Edition: Final
Story Type: Business; Column
Length: 492 words
Idnumber: 201011170137
Alberta opposes pension proposal: Morton
Calgary Herald
Wed Nov 17 2010
Page: A4
Section: News
Byline: Renata D'Aliesio
Dateline: EDMONTON
Source: Calgary Herald
As Alberta and national labour groups launched a campaign for pension reform Tuesday,
Finance Minister Ted Morton said the provincial government remains steadfast opposed to a
federal proposal to expand Canada's retirement safety net.
The thorny issue of possibly altering the country's public pension plan will be on the agenda
when finance ministers meet in Kananaskis next month.
Two provincial-federal working groups have been established: one is examining enhancing the
Canada Pension Plan, which would result in a modest increase in benefits funded through higher
premiums; the other is looking at private-sector options.
Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, is urging Alberta to back a CPP
expansion. Support from two-thirds of provinces representing two-thirds of Canada's population
is required to reform the public pension plan.
"There is a historic opportunity for the provinces and the federal government to come together
and provide a solution to the looming crisis in retirement income," said McGowan, who argues
increasing private-sector options won't be enough to address the problem.
Morton, however, contends across-the-board CPP hikes aren't the solution. He added a premium
increase could kill jobs.

10. "The problem is very specific," Morton said of retirement income. "It's not in the higher-income
brackets. It's not in the lower-income brackets.
"There's a certain portion of middle-income Canadians that have not saved enough for
retirement. That's where the remedy has to focus."
If the federal government wins enough provincial support for enhancing CPP, Morton hinted the
Alberta government could attempt to stymie pension change, noting the province has options.
"But we won't discuss that today," the finance minister said.
Premier Ed Stelmach said he's discussed Alberta's pension concerns with fellow premiers. He
said some are rethinking their initial support for higher CPP premiums.
"This requires more dialogue," Stelmach said.
Edition: Final
Story Type: News
Length: 298 words
Idnumber: 201011170022
Retiree hopes found pension will inspire
others to look; Late wife had been told she
would forfeit it if she took offered buyout
Edmonton Journal
Wed Nov 17 2010
Page: B3
Section: CityPlus
Byline: Dave Cooper
Dateline: EDMONTON
Source: Edmonton Journal
Retiree Robert Thompson recently stumbled across a pension worth $8,500 he never knew
existed.
The pension belonged to his wife, Elisabeth, who died last year at the age of 66 believing she
never was going to receive one after she joined 4,000 other Safeway employees in accepting a
deal to quit their positions in 1993, during a period of restructuring in Alberta's grocery business.

11. The senior staff received up to $35,000 to leave, and Safeway hired a flood of cheaper part-time
workers to fill in the gaps. Union officials said the huge number of staff who wanted out
surprised the company.
"Before my wife left, the store manager asked her to withdraw her letter of resignation, and told
her she would lose her pension if she left. But she left anyway and forgot about the whole thing.
None of this was ever put in writing," said Thompson.
"When she turned 65 and got her Canada pension and supplement, she was never advised about
this other pension," he added.
Now, Thompson hopes the couple's experience will encourage other former Safeway employees
to double-check with the pension plans.
Jason Maloney, a spokesman for Alberta Finance and Enterprise, said all pension plans must
notify recipients when they reach age 71. "There is a requirement under the provincial legislation
to tell people of their options when they leave a job, and that includes pension questions,"
Maloney said.
Thompson found out about the pension when he called the Canadian Commercial Workers
Industry Pension Plan, which is managed by the industry and the United Food and Commercial
Workers (UFCW) union. "I called to clean up my wife's estate, and just checked with them in
case they wanted to reissue her union number. Lo and behold, they said she had a pension and I
could collect it as her beneficiary. I was shocked," he said.
"They said they would have contacted her when she turned 71. But she could have started
collecting it at age 65 or before. And because none of us expected that there was a pension, why
should we have contacted them to keep up our mailing address?" he asked.
While a pension plan has a responsibility to contact a person, the recipient must keep the plan
officials up to date with their contact information.
Doug O'Halloran, president of UFCW Local 401 which still represents Safeway workers, said
the story is unfortunate.
O'Halloran, who was head of Local 401 in 1993, said it was the first time he'd heard of this kind
of situation.
"I hope it would just be people from one store who got bad information from a human resources
person," O'Halloran said. "But it would be illegal, and just wrong, for that to happen."
However, O'Halloran said all staff who left Safeway had to sign a document which explained
their severance package, including the pension.
"All I can suggest is that former Safeway staff contact the union. We will put this information on
our website to advise people about this case," he said.

12. Because of the privacy law, O'Halloran said no union official can check with the pension
administrators. Former employees have to contact the plan personally.
"There was a time when I could find out information to help people, but not anymore," he said.
Thompson believes there are more people out there who have forgotten or were misinformed
about the pension.
"I am talking about my personal situation here, but I am doing this so other people can make that
call," he said.
"My wife would have really liked to know that she had this pension that was due to her."
Edition: Final
Story Type: News
Length: 592 words
Idnumber: 201011170121
Alberta needs pension reform: AFL; More
than half of senior families have no pension,
report says
Edmonton Journal
Wed Nov 17 2010
Page: B3
Section: CityPlus
Byline: Conal Pierse
Dateline: EDMONTON
Source: Edmonton Journal
The Alberta Federation of Labour says the provincial government needs to get on board with
Canada Pension Plan reform or get out of the way.
In a report released on Tuesday, entitled "It is broke ... so fix it!" the AFL warns that a significant
number of Albertans are facing a lower standard of living once they retire.
According to the report, while the average Albertan's pension is $60,000, more than half of
senior families have no pension. Among those without pensions, 38 per cent have RRSPs or
Registered Retirement Investment Funds.

13. "Albertans simply don't have enough money to provide what they need when they retire, and the
problem is getting worse all the time," said Gil McGowan. "Despite our wealth as a province,
we're not being spared this problem."
As the province plans for a surge in Alberta's senior population as the baby boomers reach 65,
McGowan said the government needs to support expanding the CPP.
In a meeting of Canada's federal and provincial finance ministers in June, the consensus was to
work on a plan that would see a modest increase in the Canada Pension Plan benefit. Since then,
Ted Morton, Alberta's Minister of Finance and Enterprise, has been the only minister to publicly
oppose the increase. Morton said the current pension system is good and reforms would do more
harm than good.
"The problem is very specific; it's not the higher income brackets, it's not in the low income
brackets, there's a certain portion of middle-income Canadians that haven't saved enough for
retirement," he said. "That's where the remedy has to focus."
Morton said increased CPP contributions are an additional, unneeded payroll tax that would hurt
economic recovery efforts. "We still have an unemployment problem in Canada," he said.
"Putting an extra payroll tax on employers is not the thing to do when you're trying to create
more jobs."
NDP MLA Rachel Notley said the reforms were long overdue and said the ministry was taking a
backward approach. "If you compare us to many much more progressive countries, particularly
in Europe, our low level of retirement planning is quite shameful," Notley said.
Edition: Final
Story Type: Business
Length: 354 words
Idnumber: 201011170122
Pension pay at 67 urged by think-tank;
'People live longer'; No need to cut CPP
benefits 14%, actuary says
National Post
Wed Nov 17 2010
Page: FP4
Section: Financial Post

14. Byline: Jonathan Chevreau
Source: Financial Post
If Ottawa heeds the recommendations of a University of Toronto think-tank, Canadian workers
may eventually have to work two more years before receiving regular or early Canada Pension
Plan benefits.
A Mowat Center paper entitled Is 70 the New 65? argues Canada should follow the lead of
several countries and push back normal CPP eligibility from age 65 to 67.
Even early reduced CPP benefits should begin no earlier than age 62, instead of the current 60,
says the paper, released on Tuesday.
Martin Hering of McMaster and Thomas Klassen of York University asked CPP's chief actuary,
Claude Menard, to estimate the fiscal impact of a gradual two-year delay, starting in 2012 and
phased in over 12 years -- i.e. by two months per year. So those turning 60 in 2012 would be
eligible for a reduced pension two months after turning 60 and a full pension two months after
65. Those turning 60 in 2023 could take early reduced benefits at 62 and a full unreduced
pension at 67.
The major fiscal impact wouldn't occur until 2050, Mr. Hering said in an interview. If most
recipients did delay retirement, annual contribution rates would rise by $5-billion a year and
expenses would fall by $15-billion.
Actuary Malcolm Hamilton, partner with Mercer in Toronto, accepts neither the diagnosis nor
the remedy.
"By proposing to pay the regular benefit at 67 and a reduced benefit at 65, the authors are
essentially advocating a 14% reduction in CPP benefits. This might make sense if the CPP was
in trouble, but it isn't."
He says CPP's last actuarial report found even after the financial crisis and considering rising
longevity, CPP will be better funded in 75 years than today, without raising contribution rates. It
makes no sense to to cut benefits 14% to raise an extra $1-trillion by 2050 "is neither sensible
nor intergenerationally equitable," he said in an email.
The paper says similar changes have been adopted in the United States, United Kingdom,
Germany and France: the latter to much protest and media attention. By contrast, Canada's
government has been "remarkably silent on the issue."
In the United States, the decision to raise eligibility from 65 to 67 was made in the early 1980s
but implementation began in 2003 and won't be fully phased in until 2025.
In 2007, the U.K. started to gradually raise the retirement age from 65 to 68. Germany raised it
from 65 to 67 and bumped up early eligibility from 62 to 63. Last year, Australia moved its "Age
Pension" age from 65 to 67.

15. Those countries increased retirement ages to solve long-neglected social security problems, Mr.
Hamilton said. But Canada reformed CPP and raised contribution rates in the 1990s in order to
avoid those problems.
"I see no merit in adopting other countries' draconian solutions to problems we no longer have."
In 2009, finance ministers agreed to discourage early CPP benefits by raising the early-benefit
reduction from 6% to 7.2%. They made it more attractive to postpone retirement by raising
benefits for late pension receipt (after 65) from 6% to 8.4%. Because of those amendments,
Canadians are neither rewarded nor punished for retiring early, which is "the way it should be,"
Mr. Hamilton said.
Canadians are living longer but don't want to work longer, says Morneau Sobeco chief actuary
Fred Vettese.
He argues it's no longer a matter of whether the CPP retirement age be raised but only when it
should occur. But he cautions that postponing CPP benefits for the masses widens the disparity
with government employees who can already retire between 55 and 60.
Consultant Greg Hurst says the proposal would go "a long way to solving both private and public
pension funding challenges ... People live much longer now than they did when the concept of
'normal' retirement at age 65 was first formulated."
Edition: National
Story Type: Business
Length: 599 words
Idnumber: 201011170011
I draw a line in sand on vets' disability
awards
The Ottawa Citizen
Wed Nov 17 2010
Page: A13
Section: Letters
Byline: Jean-Pierre Blackburn
Source: The Ottawa Citizen

16. It has been said that every day is Remembrance Day for families and friends who have lost a
loved one in service to our great country.
In my 10 months as Minister of Veterans Affairs, I have come to understand this more
profoundly than ever. As our nation's attention is focused on our veterans this month, it is
appropriate that we should take the time to discuss the issues that are so important to them and
their families.
I would like to re-assure all Canadians that our government has been listening to our veterans.
We recognize that they have legitimate concerns, and we have acted to address them.
I feel obliged, however, to draw one line in the sand. There are those who insist that Canada
should abandon the disability award, or lump-sum payment as it is known, and the ongoing
financial supports that come with it. They want us to turn back the clock and fully restore the
previous system of disability pensions. I believe this would be a serious error. And, quite frankly,
I believe those advocating such changes probably don't know all the details of the New Veterans
Charter, which was passed unanimously by Parliament in 2005.
While disability pensions had worked well following the two world wars, they had run their
course. We had to correct a pension system that encouraged increasingly younger veterans to
focus on proving their health was deteriorating while receiving very limited benefit from doing
so. After all, the average disability pension from Veterans Affairs Canada was about $600 per
month, and it came with few services and only partial medical care.
The New Veterans Charter, on the other hand, is about far more than the disability award. It also
provides other ongoing financial supports. One example is the monthly earnings loss benefit. It
provides eligible veterans with up to 75 per cent of their pre-release salary. With more than $2
billion in recent changes our government has announced, we are convinced that the New
Veterans Charter can keep pace with the varied needs of the men and women it serves.
Jean-Pierre Blackburn,
Minister of Veterans Affairs
Edition: Final
Story Type: Letter
Length: 350 words
Idnumber: 201011170052