Discussions

Not only do we get shafted by the NDP Govt. over our Cost of Living Raise on our Pensions, but we have to listen to their Bullsh*t about how they have given every one enough money to never have to worry about their quality of life, when in fact they have offered nothing.  
Press Release from RTAM.  
"Monday, June 9th, 2008 marks the moral bankruptcy of the current  
Government's dealings with retired teachers in this province. Rather  
than find a solution to the long term funding of the Cost-of-Living  
Adjustment (COLA) Fund, the Government has chosen to cut benefits and  
to send all retired teachers away from the discussion table for ten  
years." This was the reaction of Pat Bowslaugh, President of the  
Retired Teachers' Association of Manitoba, to the introduction of Bill  
45.  
The first reading of Bill 45 unashamedly reduces retired teachers'  
entitlement from 100% COLA to 66%, with no guarantees of any amount  
whatsoever. The Bill includes the escape clause of "available funding  
in the pension adjustment account". Put simply, it means that the  
Government is not going to increase the PAA (Pension Adjustment  
Account) so that adequate COLAs could result. Instead, it is  
puttingits trust in the stock market and hoping that enough interest  
can be earned to raise the COLAs from a 25% level to 50%.  
 
A 100% COLA, for which all teachers did pay and are continuing to pay,  
maintains the purchasing power of teachers to the year in which they  
retire, i.e. there is no profit.  
 
The Government has read into the recent, flawed plebiscite result some  
spurious justification for acting on legislation it must have had  
written well in advance of the plebiscite itself. Disregarding the  
48% of the voting teachers who do not want the reductions of the Sale  
Report, the Minister of Education has taken a backward step in  
relations with those who have served this province for many decades.  
The Bill makes no mention of their organization, the Retired Teachers  
Association of Manitoba (RTAM), and makes no provision for their  
involvement in the future. In plain words, the Minister is abusing  
retired teachers and telling them to get used to a lower standard of  
living. He has added insult to injury, and shows that he has little  
respect for those teachers who have worked for the children of this  
province for many decades. He has chosen to do this on the very day  
that the Government proclaims its opposition to verbal and financial  
abuse against Seniors.  
 
The Minister has been heard to say that he does not like being  
described as a "bully". Yet he has talked like one, blaming RTAM for  
not totally accepting all parts of the Sale Report. Now, he is acting  
like a bully by using the big Government club to rush legislation  
through, putting retired teachers in their place with no prospects for  
improvements for the next 10 years. With the proposed Bill 45, he has  
become the "biggest bully on the playground".  
RTAM is deeply saddened to see one of their own, a former teacher of  
History, become the instrument of Government repression, and wonders  
where the voices are of the other fourteen MLA teachers who belong to  
the Government caucus.  
 
RTAM agreed to the financial aspects of the Sale Report that might  
benefit retired teachers in the short run but the Government has  
chosen to ignore that offer. Rather than accept the responsibility for  
mismanagement of the COLA Fund, with warnings being given by actuaries  
since 1986, the Government is blaming the victims for the inadequate  
COLAs that have been experienced by retired teachers since 1999 and  
will continue for the next ten years.  
 
RTAM hopes that the other political parties will resist the temptation  
to join the Government in its attack on the elderly citizens who,  
apparently, had the misfortune to teach in this province. Bill 45 is  
not the reward they should have expected for a job well done, and it  
is not in the tradition of the political party of Ed Schreyer who  
introduced a 100% COLA in 1977.