British Columbia

ey

Seniors

launch

petition
campaign

Representatives of B.C. pensioners
groups last week launched a province-
wide petition campaign demanding that
the Social Credit government scrap its
recent fee increases and the proposed
means test for residents of long term care
facilities.

Backed by Russ Hunter, vice-president
of the Council of Senior Citizens’ Organi-
zations (COSCO), B.C. Old Age Pension-
ers’ Organization president Jo Arland

announced the petition at a seniors’ forum
in Vancouver’s Bayview School April 22,
organized by the New Democratic Party.

The petition, sponsored by the Con-
cerned Citizens’ Committee which includes
the B.C. OAPO and COSCO, calls on the
government to rescind the increase in fees
and the proposed means test for patients
in long term care facilities,

“Many of these patients are on min-
imum and _ fixed incomes,” it states.
“Increased: fees will reduce the amount
available to provide for their necessary
personal and medical needs while a means
test will subject them toa demeaning and
intrusive inquiry into their personal
affairs.”

The fee increases, imposed as part of the
government’s 1988 budget, boosted long
term care costs from 75 per cent of federal
old age pension to 85 per cent. Arland
emphasized that the increase would add

THY LYOIA OF AeéKeM

Russ Hunter (I) and Jo Arland with copies of the petition launched April 22.

$900 a year to the costs of long term care
patients, reducing the amount available to
them for toiletries. clothing and other
necessities.

The initial outcry against the increase
Prompted the government to add new
provisions to the Guaranteed Income for
Need (GAIN) program, enabling pen-
sioners who are drawing the federal old
age pension plus the income supplement
to get an additional $50 from GAIN. But
it is subject to a means test and still falls
short of covering the increase in fees,

Arland told the forum that the commit-

tee hoped to collect 100,000 signatures by
the target date of June 15.

“With all the pensioners in the pro-
vince, that shouldn’t be a problem,” she
said. “But we want more than just pen-
sioners to take the petition — we want
their children and their grandchildren to
take it, we want the labour movement to
come out and support us.”

The petitions will initially be circulated
by all 40 branches of the OAPO as well as
the member organizations of COSCO.
Immediately, copies of the petition are
available from three locations: Reg Gates,

2337 Pheasant Terrace, Nanaimo, V9T
3P5; Molly Robinson, PO Box 52, 108
Ranch, RR 1, 100 Mile House, VOK 2E0;
and Josephine Arland, 2 — 112015 — 93A
Ave., Surrey, V3V 6B3. Petitions are also
to be returned to those addresses,

Arland noted that her own address is in
Surrey, “the place where Premier Bill
Vander Zalm started his political career,

“We hope this will finish your political
career because, Mr. Premier, the pension-
ers of this province, unlike your caucus
members, have moxie,” she said to
applause,

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