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