Editorial

Suing the province over pensions

Ken Smith is trying to start a revolution. Or at least an uprising among provincial employees, who he says will not get the pensions they’ve been promised.
Smith’s Alberta Society for Pension Reform is suing the Alberta government over the way the government has handled pensions. The situation is bad, he says, and getting worse.
Smith was in town last week to speak to a smallish group of people, most of whom work in education, health care or provincial agencies. He told them that if they retire with 30 years of service and an average salary of $40,000, they’ll get a pension of only $1,413 per month, $586 less than they were promised.
Provincial benefits have been eroding ever since 1966, when the province linked its pension plan to the Canada Pension Plan. Contributions have been going up and benefits down ever since.
Smith, a retired steam engineer, said he started looking into the pension situation six years ago after finding his provincial pension was much less than he expected. He found that the formula used to calculate the benefit is bogus, and represents a clear breach of promise on the part of the province. He helped form the pension reform society and started lobbying the government.
Several years on, the government hasn’t budged, in spite of friendly noises from a few MLAs. So the society is taking the government to court.
Its beefs is summed up in four points: First, that provincial employees are ‘forced to pay benefits not included in our final pensions’; second that provincial employees are ‘forced to pay the Alberta government for benefits supplied by Canada Pension’; third, that provincial employees are ‘forced to pay for an unfunded liability that is a debt of the province’; and finally that ‘co-ordinated pensions further reduce lilfetime benefits.’
Under these sad circumstances, many people thinking of retiring before 65 might find out that they can’t afford to. One woman in Smith’s audience last week said that was exactly what she had found out, much to her dismay.
Why the unions haven’t taken up this fight is a very good question - one that Smith dealt with at the meeting. He said they are starting to come around, but were initially reluctant because as members of the boards that oversee pension management, they felt they were in somewhat of a conflict of interest. Shame on them.
In the meantime, the suit against the provincial government is grinding its way through the system. To find out more, visit the website AlbertaPensionReform.ca.

Apartments needed!
There’s a hullaballoo around town lately about the lack of housing lots and the lack of approval by Town council of various housing development proposals. The mantra in all the complaints is that many new workers are coming to town, so we need houses for them to live in.
That’s not a bad argument, but it also partly misses the point. If 300 new retail jobs are being created, and if it’s true that many will have to come from out of town, then the real need will be for apartments. Nobody working the till at Wal-Mart is going to be able to affor a house in Slave Lake. Or a condo. Or anything else they have to buy.
They’ll be renters, almost every one of them.
So where are the proposals for apartment buildings? How many decades has it been since the last apartment building was built in Slave Lake?
There are already waiting lists for apartments and the rush hasn’t even started.