wet Ly LL

By BRUCE MAGNUSON

' After years of public pressure, intergovernmental
wconsultations, business and monopoly pressure, and

i uf, MOunting public concern with Canada’s retirement in-

ung
re N.
1 dele
-m tl

an
whic

1p
ndred
stitul

| aske
nploy
-nnet
» willl

gstol

cesta Nii nt

Mem f; Promised government paper on pension reform has been

Mi Presented to parliament. Welfare Minister Monique
f Begin and Finance Minister Marc Lalonde tabled the

| Come system — particularly the racket that goes by the
name of employer-sponsored pension plans — the long

proposed legislation in the form ofa Green Paper on Dec.
9, 1982. It will now go to a parliamentary committee,
_ where all interested patties — we hope that includes the
Pensioners and the public at large — are promised an
Opportunity to express their views.

_ But don’t hold your breath waiting for results. Follow-
ing at least a year of discussion and hearings across
Canada, the committee will report back to parliament.
Then consultation with the provinces will begin. Pro-
ect law governs private, employer-sponsored pen-
_ Slons, and no changes can be made to the Canada Pen-
sion Plan without the consent of the provinces, Quebec

Operates its plan on a parallel but separate basis.

@ The Green Paper makes it clear that the government’s
first priority is the “‘restoration of a healthy and vigorous
economy.” For this purpose it relies on the private sec-
tor as the main engine of growth. The government's role
_ 1s purported to be that of generating a climate favorable

-Tesponsibility finds its expression in the cutback of social
Programs, particularly the promotion of the ‘6 and 5S”
program.

It is, therefore, within that context that it sees pension
reform as a ‘lengthy process’, with little or no costs
being felt in the immediate future and, therefore, not

ie to private capital investment, and its practice of fiscal
t, 20

_ interfering with the state-monopoly economic restraint

program.
Chapter one of the Green Paper claims that historical-
ly, Canadian pension policy has been shaped by three
central goals: a) to guarantee a basic income for those
without resources:of their own; b) to assure fair oppor-
tunities for Canadians to provide for their retirement
years, and; c) to enable Canadians to avoid serious dis-

Tuptions in their living standards upon retirement.
These are lofty ideals and desirable objectives. But the
Struggle to implement them has been hard and difficult.

Better
Pensions for

Canadians

The first Old Age Pension Act of 1927 provided for $20
a month on the basis of a means test. In the early 1950s
the first universal Old Age Security (OAS) program was
put into place and the federal government became com-
mitted for the first time to a basic retirement pension in
Canada as a right of all Canadians.

But the pension remained low — $40 a month in 1949
— from where it gradually rose to $75 in 1963 and to $100
in 1973, all as a result of public pressure.

The Green Paper does not mention the fact that in 1970
the federal government issued a White Paper that set out
the aim of downgrading the universal old-age pension
and upgrading instead the Guaranteed Income Supple-
ment, (GIS) intended as an interim measure on a means
test basis to ease the 10-year phase-in of the Canada and
Quebec Pension Plans, but which became a permanent
feature as a vehicle for the phase-out of the universal
OAS pension.

The Green Paper admits: (chap. 2, p. 5) “The founda-
tion for all retirement income is the federal Old Age
Security pension. It provides every resident of Canada,
as a matter of right, with a flat rate benefit at age 65 based
on years of residence in Canada. It is indexed to account
for inflation, though increases will be limited to 6% and
5% over the next two years, respectively, because of the
need for everyone to contribute to the economic re-

pension. but indexing has added $146.92 to the basic
$100 pension, making it $246.92 a month for the last
quarter of 1982. Total 1981 payments for this universal
pension were $5.9-billion going to 2.3 million recipients,
57% of whom were women. During 1982, the OAS pen-
sion averaged $238 a month or $2,842 a person for the
year — an amount equal to 14% of the average industrial
wage.

on the other hand, has had two increases — $20 a month
in January 1979 and $35 in July 1980, making the
maximum indexed GIS $247.89 a month as of the final
quarter of 1982.Relatively few receive the maximum
amount from this means-tested program which grants
anything from a few cents up to the maximum, added on
to the OAS monthly cheque. In 1981, the money going to
1.22 million persons averaged out to 8% of the average
industrial wage.

these pension payments would still be below the poverty
line, which is $8,045 for an individual in Metropolitan
Toronto according to Stats Canada.

Backgrounder

Since 1973, there has been no increase in the OAS

The income-tested Guaranteed Income Supplement,

Any single person receiving the maximum of both

COMING IN THE TRIBUNE!

A full program of pension proposals based on
these points:
1. Mandatory public pensions on the principle of
unive ‘.
2. $650 as the monthly basic sum of Old Age Se-
curity and Canada Pension Plan pensions.
3. Tax exemption for incomes of less than $18,000.
4. Full protection of private pension plans for work-
ers from loss of pensions through unemployment.

5. Vesting of the pension in the employee, and
portability of all pension plans.
6. A deciding voice for organized labor in the
investment, use, and management of pension funds.

covery program.’ (emphasis added)

A Toronto reader poses a question
arising out of a group discussion which
raised a problem that the group (Tribune
readers) did not resolve, namely: ‘‘Will
Capital punishment continue to exist in a
communist society?’’ Some of the par-
ticipants argued that it would because

| ‘‘crime will continue to exist’’. Others
took the position that ‘‘under socialism

communism the main economic
Causes for crime will largely be elim-
inated, therefore capital punishment —
as a false deterrent — will be eliminated,
while lesser human crimes may still
exist.’ The group asks for our comments
on these ‘“‘two.(related) subjects.”’

* * *

Our first reaction to this request was:
how can a group of Trib readers spend
valuable time discussing a problem that
can only be resolved by a future society
where the world is ‘‘ruled by labor and
there’s peace and joy for all”? Why
now? When U.S. imperialist circles are
Pushing the world toward nuclear war,
with apparent acquiescence of their
Canadian counterparts, and the whole
Capitalist world flounders in an economic
Crisis of enormous magnitude? But, on
Second thought, we concluded there does
exist a connection between just punish-
ment for crime, the threat of nuclear war
and the capitalist-wide economic crisis.

_ Thinking it over, what crime is more
monstrous than that of depriving every
Man, woman and child on our planet of
the right to live? And, isn’t the next more
Monstrous crime against humanity that
of denying every adult member of soci-
ety the right to gainful employment suf-
ficient to maintain every man, woman

%

sais §

and child on our planet in peace, securi-
ty, health and happiness for all the days
of their lives? Yes, there is an inter-
relation between the drive to nuclear
war, crime, capital punishment and
socio-economic systems.

i? Se ak

The Program of the Communist Party
of the Soviet Union, the most advanced
party of scientific socialism in the
development of Marxist-Leninist theory
and its application in practice, states:
‘‘Communism accomplishes the historic
mission of delivering all men from social
inequality, from every form of oppres-
sion and exploitation, from the horrors of
war, and proclaims Peace, Labor, Free-
dom, Equality, Fraternity and Happiness
for all peoples of the earth.’’ What man-
kind has dreamed of during hundreds of
thousands of years will become a reality
under communism.

Equality and Freedom have always
been the goal of progressive mankind.
But, in those societies founded on the
private ownership of the means of
production, and divided into classes of
exploited and exploiters, oppressed and
oppressors, this ideal is unrealizable. It is
only when the social means of produc-
tion became public (social) property, and

, Marxism-Leninism Today

=a | Alfred Dewhurst .

the exploitation of man by man is made
impossible that a way is opened to actual,
not simply formal, equality of people
which is the real meaning of emancipa-
tion.

eta  &

The supreme goal of communism is to
ensure full freedom of development of
the human personality, to create condi-
tions for the boundless development of
the individual, for the physical and
spiritual perfection of man. Universal
abundance of the material and cultural
needs of man, an improved system of
social hygiene and health services and a
rational mode of life in communist soci-
ety will ensure man’s health, longevity
and physical well-being. The method of
communist distribution of the material
and cultural wants of the people will free
people forever from worry over their
daily bread. Free, creative labor: the
opportunity to engage in a congenial
occupation, will develop man’s
capabilities to the utmost.

Absorbing and developing all the best
that has been created by world culture,
communist culture will be a new, higher
stage.in the cultural progress of mankind.
“It will be the culture of a classless socie-
ty, a culture of the entire people, of all

Ethical standards mirror social systems

mankind.”’ (Program of the CPSU). The
new conditions of life, including much
more leisure time and development of
the individual’s own personality, will de-
velop a new morality, new social ethical
standards, such as: solidarity, mutual
good-will, a deep sense of community
with other people, members of a single
human family. The centre-piece of this
new morality will be devotion to the
collective, readiness and ability to serve
the public interests.
* * *

Communism will mean new relations
between people. They will arise as a re-
sult of the further development of the
principle of socialist internationalism,
which today constitutes the basis of rela-
tions between the countries of the
socialist world system. The victory of the
socialist revolution abolishes the social
and economic causes which give rise to
wars between states, and makes peace
and friendship the basis of relations be-
tween the people who are building the
new socialist society and opening the
door to a full communist society.

The victory of communism will not
only enable people to produce in abun-
dance everything necessary for a fully
rounded-out life for all, but also to free
society from all manifestations of inhu-
manity: war, ruthless struggle within soc-
iety and injustice, ignorance, crime and
vice. This in turn will eliminate the need
for punishment, including capital
punishment. Violence and self-interest,
hypocrisy and egoism, falseness and
boastfulness, will vanish forever from
the relations between people and be-
tween nations.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JANUARY 21, 1983—Page 5

uw