Posts from — September 2009

An obscure pension harmonization review, completed by British Columbia and Alberta just last November, has suddenly sparked a national debate on pension reform that is challenging Canada’s unions.
BC finance minister Colin Hansen emerged from an Aug. 1 meeting with his provincial counterparts with a unity agreement that clears the way for a national review of retirement incomes, including a proposal for a new national pension plan for private sector employers and employees.
A national plan was the key recommendation of Getting our Acts Together, the report of the Joint Expert Panel on Pension Standards created by Alberta and BC in 2007.
Although the joint panel, which included Vancouver pension law specialist Scott Sweatman as co-chair, urged a host of administrative and legal changes to harmonize BC and Alberta pension standards, it also called for national action to improve retirement income security.
With only 20 percent of private sector employees covered by a retirement plan, the panel said, it’s obvious most retirees will be far short of the minimum income they’ll require.
“The need for a cost-effective pension plan is clear,” they wrote, “not only to serve workers but also to address the anticipated need for an increase in capital available for infrastructure projects and ongoing capital investment in Canadian businesses.”
The panel proposed a national pension program, operated as a non-profit entity, in which private sector employers and employees would be automatically be registered, albeit with an opt-out provision. Risk would be pooled, costs reduced and coverage expanded in a “defined contribution” plan that linked benefits to contributions.
At a time when most employers are trying to “get out of the pension business,” they argued, such a program would provide a vital alternative to protect workers and help businesses.
The vision of a new national pension program resonated with employers and workers at a time when both balance sheets and private retirement savings were being savaged by the global economic crisis.
Initial labour reaction to the report tended to fixate on its roots in TILMA, the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement between BC and Alberta. (TILMA, with its free trade philosophy, is an agreement the labour movement loves to hate.)
But Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan — one of the country’s most effective labour leaders despite his relative youth and his organization’s small size — took up the challenge of a national plan.
He commissioned PBI Actuarial Consultants, a Vancouver-based pension consulting firm, to assess the panel’s recommendations.
PBI agreed that “it is vital to increase the coverage of workers under pension plans,” but concluded the panel’s Alberta BC Plan, or ABC Plan, “will be unlikely to provide the income individuals need in retirement.”
The best approach, says McGowan, is a supplementary plan to the Canada Pension Plan, which would be mandatory for employers, easy to administer and provide better benefits. Such a national plan should be a “defined benefit” plan that provides a minimum level of support to all members.
McGowan garnered national coverage in June when he pursued western premiers to their meeting in Dawson City, Yukon, where he argued for a mandatory national plan.
The ABC plan is “at best an awkward Band-Aid solution,” he said, at time when “more and more people are starting to realize that if major policy changes aren’t initiated, significant numbers of Canadians – probably millions of them – will face the very real prospect of poverty in their old age.”
Canada’s labour movement, particularly the Canadian Labour Congress, has worked hard on the pension issue, which grabs the attention of rank-and-file convention delegates like few others. So far, however, labour has mostly been talking to itself.
That’s all changed with the release of the Joint Panel report, now being championed by BC’s Liberal government.
It sounds like McGowan and the panel agree on the disease, if not the cure. In times like these, that’s a win.
Sept. 2009

Gordon Campbell’s campaign promises are toppling like nine-pins, but the Premier has so far not stepped back from his election pledge to implement a U-Pass program for all BC post-secondary students.

The NDP says the flip-flop is imminent, but Lower Mainland college and university students are determined to hold Campbell’s feet to the fire with a OnePassNow campaign that calls on the Premier to deliver a single pass.

As this site has demonstrated in exhaustive detail, the current Translink “revenue neutral” model has reached its limit: there are no major groups of students left whose mandatory monthly bus pass purchases would produce enough revenue to balance out the cost of useful service increases. The paradoxical result is that student bodies that have high transit usage already — like VCC and Emily Carr — would face much higher costs for a card than large groups like SFU and UBC, that have both numbers and a high share of drivers.

The Premier got it right in May — a universal pass must be implemented by decision of senior government. That will take some cash and also produce service challenges for Translink and BC Transit. And that brings the government up against the Translink 10-year plan proposal, which is a separate Force 5 hurricane in its own right. (More on that later.)

Premier Campbell says he will deliver on all-day kindergarten, despite cuts everywhere else. Will he deliver the Pass? Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, the OnePassNow campaign is doing a good job of reminding students that they’re pissed about U-Pass.

Cordova St. was closed Sunday between Cambie and Abbott for the second annual Friends of Ferrari Formula 1 Grand Prix championship.

But unlike the Vancouver Indy, the FFF1 is barely noticed by the neighbours. This charity event, for which I was honoured to wave the checkered flag, pits three to five-year-old boys and girls against each other in electric vehicles that move at a brisk walking pace.

During the last five years, Franco Corona and his energetic volunteers have raised a staggering $1.1 million for 38 charities. On Sunday, the Strathcona Dental Clinic, Bladerunners and the Vancouver Police Pipe Band divvied up $10,000.

Save driving practices are mandatory. As Franco says on his website, “proper driving includes not trying to hit other cars, cutting other cars off and following instructions to stop and turn.”

Today’s winners scored huge trophies and the champion won a mountain bike.

Women drivers start their engines for the Woodwards Formula 1 Sunday in Gastown.

Gregor Robertson, with Haroon Khan, second from right, at Ramadan Spirit food distribution at Carnegie.

Members of Vancouver’s Jamia Masjid mosque marked the 18th day of Ramadan Wednesday with the distribution of more than 1,000 meals outside the Carnegie Centre at Hastings and Main. Mayor Gregor Robertson and I were on hand to help out.

The Ramadan distribution is an annual event organized by the Pakistan Canada Association and Jamia Masjid, Vancouver’s oldest mosque, located at 655 West 8th in Fairview, just a few blocks from my home.

“We mark the end of Ramadan with as many good things as possible,”  says Jamia Masjid trustee Haroon Khan. “We hope to share the message  of peace that is Islam.” This year’s Ramadan is to end Sept. 20. Food distributions will occur daily, but today’s Ramadan spirit effort is the largest.

Although only about 40 years old, the Fairview mosque was the first in the city and remains a centre of the Islamic community, which is drawing in members from an astonishing number of countries.
Among them are Saudi students, more than 3,000 of whom are in Vancouver at any one time learning English or pursuing post-secondary studies.

At a time when many in Canada are responding to Islam with a mixture of ignorance and fear, the food distribution not only reduces hunger in a poor neighbourhood, it gives a human face to the strength and diversity of the Muslim community.