JOAN De’ATH

CANADA PENSION INFORMATION

By JOAN De’ATH Assistant Director IWA Pensions

The Canada Pension Plan came into effect for working Canadians on January 1, 1966. Under this plan, monthly pensions are paid to persons in retirement, to widows, widowers, orphans, the disabled and child- ren of a disabled contributor. In addition there is a lump sum death benefit which is payable to the estate of a contributor.

Workers over the age of 18 contribute 1.8% of their annual wages up to the maximum set by the Canada Pension Plan. This year, anyone earning $14,400 or more will pay $212.40 and your employer will pay an equal amount on your behalf.

You must apply for each of the benefits you are eligible for by visiting your local Health and Welfare Canada office. If you are disabled and unable to visit the plan office yourself, arrangements will be made for a counsellor to come to your home.

All monthly benefits paid by the plan are increased each January Ist to reflect the full increase in the Consumer Price Index.

Each of the benefits available are briefly described below:

Retirement Pensions

Retirement pensions become payable at age 65. The maximum pension payable to anyone retiring in 1980 is $244.44 per month. If you make the maximum contribu- tions to the plan each year (i.e., in 1980 $212.40) between the ages of 18 and 65, you will qualify for the full pension. The plan does make some allowance for those people who do not contribute the full amount each year due to sickness, unemployment, school- ing, etc.

A person who continues to work after age 65 may also collect his pension from the Canada Pension Plan and the amount of your pension will not be affected by any wages you receive. Once you start to draw your pension, contributions will not be deducted from your pay cheque. |

You should apply for your pension three months before your 65th birthday.

The pension is payable to you for your lifetime. Payments stop the month follow- ing your death.

Death Benefits

If you are collecting your pension and you die, your estate would receive a lump sum payment equal to six months of your pen- sion, (subject to a maximum payment in 1980 of $1310).

If you die before age 65, your estate may also receive a lump sum payment from the plan. The maximum amount payable in 1980 is $1310. The deceased person must have contributed to the plan for a minimum of three years and for at least one-third of the years he or she was eligible to contribute since 1966. A person who made contribu- tions, for example, in December, 1978, all of 1979 and for the first month of 1980 is considered by the Canada Pension Plan to have contributed for three calendar years.

If the deceased person’s estate qualifies for the lump sum death benefit monthly pensions may also be payable to the surviv- ing spouse (male or female) or, orphans.

For the year 1980, a surviving spouse age 45 or older, or, survivors who are under age 45 and either have dependent children or are disabled, could receive a maximum monthly benefit of $146-149. (Surviving spouses between the ages of 35-45 who are not disabled and do not have dependent child- ren may be eligible for a partial benefit).

Survivor’s pensions start the month following the contributor’s death and are

payable for life or, until remarriage.

A ie DAVE BARRETT

By DAVE BARRETT Leader of the Opposition

The resignation of half of the social worker team assigned to work with high- risk teenage “‘street children” in downtown Vancouver was the inevitable result of the Social Credit government’s mania for cen- tralization.

The cabinet’s controversial decision three years ago to wipe out the community-based and effective Vancouver Resources Board to concentrate all decision-making in the remote ministry headquarters in Victoria has fulfilled the warning predictions. Operational rules have become more rigid, decisions are delayed, money is misal- located and field workers no longer can cope with the growing problems. So they “burn out” or quit in frustration as tax dollars are wasted.

The decision to centralize was not a whim of Bill Vander Zalm as so many thought at the time. It is the hallmark of the present Social Credit Cabinet’s performance in office.

Almost the first legislative act of this regime in 1976 was to bring in the govern- ment re-organization bill. It shattered

~ egesbaealarmi

A surviving spouse of any age who has dependent children receives not only the survivor’s pension but also a monthly amount on behalf of each dependent child, (in 1980, the maximum is $57.25 per month for each child).

Orphans may receive benefits up to age 18 (or, 25 if continuing full-time education).

Disability Pensions

If the contributor suffers a disability that is so severe and prolonged that he is pre- vented from obtaining regular, gainful employment, (you don’t have to be com- pletely helpless but you must be unable to support yourself), a maximum of $240.58 per month plus $57.25 for each dependent child may be payable from the Canada Pension Plan.

To qualify you must have contributed to the plan during five of the last 10 years.

The pension is paid (beginning with the fourth month of your disability), for as long as you are disabled up to age 65. At age 65 it is replaced by the retirement pension.

Remember: Do not ASSUME you are not eligible for any of the above benef-

its — visit the government offices and find out.

F SOGIAL CREDIT’

parliamentary tradition by taking away the power of the people’s elected representatives to establish departments and allocate funds to them. Instead, the Socreds gave the cabinet total power to make any changes in government structure and funding without having to seek approval from the Legisla- ture.

This disturbing grab for centralizing all power in the cabinet was rapidly followed by other similar moves. For instance, the minister of municipal affairs was given total, discretionary power to order any municipal council to alter any of its bylaws which the minister did not like. Another early move was to severely restrict the ability of locally elected school boards to establish their own curriculum priorities by giving the education minister virtual “big brother’ presence in every classroom in the province.

“Locally elected representatives in B.C. are now clearly puppets on a shoe string,” warned B.C. School Trustees’ president Dave Kandall in 1978.

But cabinet pressed on with its centraliza- tion, dictating sharp increases in mill rates for all school districts which resulted in the current trustees’ president bitterly noting that ‘Victoria continues to centralize authority to itself while decentralizing tax- raising responsibility to the boards.”

As an invited guest at this year’s Union of B.C. Municipalities convention, I couldn’t help notice how the grassroots representa- tives of communities all across B.C. criticized the centralizing mania and arbitrary edicts of the present government.

And it was instructive to learn that the UBCM’s own solicitor detailed the frighten- ing trend toward shifting legislative power from MLAs to cabinet ministers — just as the Opposition has been warning for some time. The UBCM solicitor noted the increas- ing insertion of a clause in new acts giving cabinet power to make whatever regulations it sees fit.

Many times, such regulations were not even published by cabinet and a citizen literally could not determine “What in fact the law was governing his conduct in busi- ness or in other areas,” he said.

“The further effect is that the law is being made not by the Legislature, but by officials and ministers of the crown,” he added.

He pointed out that a host of government bills during the past session included the open-end clauses so that, “In effect, therefore, there is no limitation on the power of the ministers or cabinet .. .”

I see this as a very dangerous direction to be headed. Local input and control are essential in a free democratic society.

Lumber Worker/October, 1980/9