Liberals Hypocritical on Pension Unlocking

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Liberals hypocritical on pension unlocking :

This is a letter sent out to all Liberal MPP's .

Mr Duncan ;

Thank you for responding to my letter . Even though your response was still the Same Old , Same Old .

I would like to quote you on some of your response .

Quote " As you mentioned, some MPPs voted to unlock their RRSP-type retirement arrangement in 1999 "

" This legislation was passed by the former government despite the objection of Liberal MPPs . The Liberal Caucus Opposed to compleat unlocking in 1999, and its views remains consistent . "

You are Correct in the above statements .

I would like to now Quote for You also what Your Premier said at that time .

" I want to make it perfectly clear in this House today that I and my party will have none of it."

Dalton McGuinty plus Jim Bradley , Michael Brown , Sean Conway , Elinor Caplan , Monte Kwinter , Lyn McLeod , Gerry Philips , David Ramsay , Tony Rupercht , Richard Patten , and the list goes on took all of it . 100% Unlocking !!!!!!

Don't you think Mr Duncan that Your party is being a bit Hypocritical ,letting members take all of it when they retire ,when your leader said " MY PARTY WILL HAVE NONE OF IT ".

You Can be sure of one thing Mr Duncan that I and The Ontario Coalition of Independent LIF Holders will continue to inform the Seniors of Ontario who all the members of the Liberal Party are that will have 100% unfettered access to their pensions on retirement .

Where as any other citizen of Ontario has to wait until they are 90 Years of age OR DROP DEAD so they may receive the same privilege.

To Me Sir HYPOCRITICAL is not a strong enough word for the disparity and hardship You and the Liberal Party are forcing on the SENIORS of this Province .

People that worked hard all their lives . People that saved all their lives for a comfortable retirement ,
And now You Sir and your party are denying them their own money in their golden years .

Bill Costello , The Ontario Coalition of Independent LIF Holders .

Ontario A Have Not Province

Hi folks,Copying everyone on the May email sent to each of the 107 MPPs and various newspapers in Ontario

.Regards,Bill Nafziger

Ontario is a “Have Not Province” for Seniors with Locked-in Pensions.During 1999, MPPs in Ontario and Saskatchewan discussed the consequences of locked-in pensions for their retirees.

Dalton McGuinty eloquently expressed the unfairness of locked-in pensions, commenting on Ontario Seniors as “getting down on their bended knee asking for their own pension money”, as evidenced in the 1999 Hansard.

The discussions in Ontario resulted in 61 MPPs of all parties unlocking their pensions in 2000, but denying the same right to all other Ontarians with locked-in pensions.

Saskatchewan’s decision in 2002 was to unlock 100% of their locked-in pensions for their retirees.

"There'll be no restrictions on the amount of withdrawal that can come out," says David Wild, superintendent of pensions."Anyone with a locked-in retirement account will have the option of moving monies to a RRIF [registered retirement income fund] at retirement. Anyone who already has a LIF or an LRIF in Saskatchewan will have that money in a RRIF immediately. So the LIF and LRIF will no longer exist."

According to Wild, retirees, financial planners and financial institutions had become "frustrated" with LIF and LRIF rules in the last four years.

On a technical basis, he says, they couldn't plan ahead because maximum withdrawals from LIFs and LRIFs change according to market conditions. Also, many found the formulas for calculating maximums complicated.

On a philosophical level, Wild says regulators "received complaints, such as 'I'm a responsible adult. Who is the government to tell me how much money I can withdraw from my own LIF or LRIF?'"

Ontario reacted six years later in 2008, unlocking an insulting 25% of locked-in pensions.

Ontario locked-in pension holders paid between $5.2 and $15.6 million in financial hardship application fees, to the Financial Services Commission of Ontario (FSCO) over a three year period (2003 to 2006) to reject only 53 out of over 26,000 applicants. Taxpayers paid for additional remaining costs.

Ontario continues to require these huge costs, to support a full-time department at FSCO , whose sole objective, is to determine which pensioners can have access to more of their own money.

Saskatchewan pensioners and taxpayers paid nothing, as their government allowed pensioners the flexibility to determine their own income streams.Saskatchewan moved past the “age of government paternalism” in 2002, which continues to exist in Ontario in 2008.

Perhaps this is another reason why Ontario is moving towards a “Have Not Province”.

Best regards,Bill Nafziger

Member:Canadian Association of Retired People

Ontario Coalition of Independent LIF Holders

Common Front for Retirement Security

A Letter on Deaf Ears

A Letter on Deaf Ears

Hi Everybody;

Well here is another letter sent out to a government that doesn't really care what the people of Ontario want.

Apparently all they want to do is line their pockets. After voting them selves a 35% raise just before Christmas , they are lining their pockets again with another raise. They are the highest paid MPP's in Canada.

Maybe that is why they refuse to unlock our money. They need that money when each senior passes away and they tax their estate at the highest rate so that they will be able to keep their pockets full of money.

Hon Dalton McGuinty; ???????

Dear Dalton ;

As you may have noticed . The Federal Government is now going to allow the unlocking of 50% of Federal Locked-in pensions in Canada.This means that well over 50% of the Citizens of Canada will have a privilege that is being denied to the Citizens of Ontario.

Federal 50% , Alberta 50% , Saskatchewan 100% , Manitoba 50% ,((( Ontario 25% )))I have heard that British Columbia is also considering unlocking 50%.

Your past Finance Minister Greg Sorbara during a interview concerning locked-in pensions in answer to the Question " Do senior citizens really need protection from unscrupulous investors?"

On a CBC Radio interview Stated .

" I don't think that this has any thing to do with protecting senior citizens from investors whether unscrupulous or not. "

Your Now Current Finance Minister Dwight Duncan now States .

" the Ontario government is concerned that full unlocking of locked-in accounts could put retirement income at risk. The rational is simple , these funds are important in ensuring that seniors are provided with a regular income stream throughout retirement despite the uncertainty of an individuals life expectancy , future investment ,returns and inflation."

It appears that your Finance Ministers answers depend on is if there is a election or not.

Before a election Your government isn't concerned if a Senior is capable of looking after their own funds . ((( I would like to remind you this is our own funds )))

Now that the election is over Your government is saying in a nice way that only the Seniors in Ontario are to Stupid to look after their ((( OWN FUNDS ))) Not government money !!!

We were smart enough to save money for retirement. We are also smart enough to use it and invest it wisely.

PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONS THAT SUPPORT UNLOCKING LOCKED IN PENSIONS 100% .

Jack M. Mintz Professor Of Business Economics ,Rotman School of Management ,

Malcolm Hamilton,Actuary ,Mercer Human Resource Consulting Toronto ,

Gordon Pape , Renowned Financial Expert ,

One Thousand Eight Hundred Signatures on the online Petition that has requested that the Government of Ontario Unlock LIRF , LIRA , LIF 100%

CD Howe Institute , Canadian Economic And Social Policy Think Tank,

CARP , National Advocacy Organization For The 50 Plus , 250,000 members in Ontario ,

The Common Front For Retirement Security , 2 Million Members across Canada .

The Ontario Coalition of Independent Locked-in Fund Holders ,

Ontario Coalition of Senior Citizens Organizations.

My Question Is why does the Liberal Government of Ontario Refuse to unlock Locked-in Pensions 100 %.

Especially when A good Number of Current Liberal MPP'S will enjoy this Privilege at the age of 55 or when they retire.

Bill Costello

Live Poor Die Rich

Hi Everybody;Here is a article that Grant has sent out to a number of papers .

Locked-In Pensions: Live Poor Die RichMarch 17, 2008

Many retirees today living with locked-in pensions are barely getting by and are increasingly becoming poorer with each round of rate hikes of their most basic needs. Some are often faced with no other choice but to give up the home they’ve worked for all their lives in order to obtain additional money just to survive.

The real costs facing seniors, especially in the current economic climate, are escalating uncontrollably due in large part to the rising price of energy to heat their homes, gasoline for their cars, water and sewer charges, endless property tax hikes and the rising costs for food.

If you are one of these people depending on your Ontario regulated LIF or LRIF pension to see you through these tough times, the money in your locked-in pension will outlive 99.9% of you.

That’s right, according to Statistics Canada, less than one half of one percent of our seniors will ever reach 90 years of age, which is the age that you would get the final 50% of the balance of the money in your locked-in pension.

Therefore, 99.9% of you with LIF’s or LRIF’s will certainly die with at least 50% of your pension money left behind to your successor all the while living out your golden years staring into your pension fund without ever getting to actually use the bulk of it.

Even at the average life expectancy of 78 for a male and 82 for a female, the government still only allows a paltry 11 to 12% annual access to your locked-in pension at those ages.

This is why you will certainly live poor and die rich when it comes to your locked-in pension.

The Ontario government, which regulates access to your locked-in pensions, is out of touch with the 6% annual access it grants seniors to their own pension money. They appear oblivious to the plight of these pensioners and provide no practical means to increase the rate of access to those with locked-in pensions to meet the ever-increasing real cost of living.

While other provinces and the Federal government allow from 50% to 100% access to their regulated locked-in pensions, the Ontario government continues to remain far behind with a one-time access of only 25%.

They continue to ignore and refuse to listen to the will of its seniors who are seeking 100% access to their locked-in pensions instead of remaining shackled with this out-dated indifferent legislation.

This is completely unacceptable and cruel to those seniors who would normally be able to afford to keep up with the rising cost of living if greater or full access to their locked-in pensions would be made available to them as was done for 61 Ontario MPP’s back in 1999 when they passed legislation that unlocked their own locked-in pensions.

The Liberal government today, continues to support the double standard that it’s current leader hypocritically and eloquently denounced back in 1999 when legislation was passed to exclusively unlock MPP’s pensions 100% while ignoring all other Ontarians with similar pensions.

Further, the Ontario government is clearly inconsistent with its own economic strategies when on one hand it allows providers of essential services to set their own pricing based on the free market model of supply and demand, and on the other hand, through discriminatory and archaic legislation, prevents it’s senior population from keeping up to these market driven rising costs by fixing a limited amount of access to their private locked-in pensions.

How can this paradox be allowed to continue when those with locked-in pensions aren’t allowed the same freedom of access to their pensions to keep up with the market’s unrestricted freedom to set pricing of goods, services, taxes and other basic necessities.

The current policies and philosophy regarding locked-in pensions were developed back in the day when the day-to-day costs of these basic necessities rarely rose at all.

Those days are long gone, but the outdated legislation governing Ontario’s locked-in pensions are not.

Tight government interference with seniors’ private locked-in pensions simply must be eliminated in order to allow these folks a fighting chance to keep up with the ever increasing real cost of living, especially when they don’t often have any other means to increase their income other than through their LIF or LRIF pensions.

The Ontario government’s insistence on limiting its seniors ability to manage these burgeoning costs with its paternalism over their own pension money is bordering on white collar elder abuse and is outright shameful.

This government is completely out of touch with its senior population and continues to ignore private members bills, lobbying by private citizens, prominent financial experts such as Jack Mintz, Malcolm Hamilton, Gordon Pape etc., petitions with thousands of signatures, CARP and the Ontario Coalition of Independent LIF Holders.

It’s time for the Ontario government to do as Saskatchewan did in 2002 and eliminate locked-in pensions altogether thereby allowing 100% access to Ontario seniors’ private pensions and thus the opportunity to keep up with the spiralling personal cost of living by managing the money in their own LIF and LRIF pensions as they see fit.

Ultimately, if the Ontario government does not abolish these archaic "out of touch" regulations and end the control over its seniors’ LIF’s and LRIF’s, 99.9% of Ontarians with locked-in pensions will surely continue to live poorly and die rich, leaving the majority of their money behind that could have been used to provide them with the quality of life they’ve earned for themselves while alive.

Grant Fleury, Ontario Coalition of Independent LIF HoldersSudbury

Federal Pension LIF 50% Unlocking -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi All;

I am just updating you on what is happening in case you haven't seen this.

It is time to get after the Ontario Liberals again as now the Federal government has allowed 50% unlocking of Federal locked in pensions.

This is a letter I just received from Bill Gleberzon of CARP.

The 2008 Federal Budget has a number of good improvements for LIF-holders. The following paragraph is from our analysis of the budget: "Choices for federally regulated Locked-In Fund (LIF) - holders, such as, for those 55 years or older, conversion of up to $22,450 into to a tax deferred saving vehicle as well as an one time conversion of up to 50% of the principal into a tax deferred savings vehicle with no maximum withdrawal limits – also the option to unlock up to $22,450 for those with financial hardship." This is not only good for federally regulated LIF holders but for our campaign in Ontario as an enhancement that the Ontario Government should adopt -- from unlocking $25% to unlocking 50% as well as increasing the amount that can be unlocked to $22,450.

Key in to the Federal Department of Finance and go to The Federal Budget Index under LIfe Income Funds.

Regards Bill Costello

25% Pension Unlocking Reminder and Information

25% Pension Unlocking Reminder

Hi All ;

I am just reminding everyone who is going to be transferring the 25% out of their locked in fund into a RRIF or RRSP.

If You draw a income from your locked in fund during the year . Make sure that you transfer your yearly allowed income out of your locked in fund and put it aside in a account so that you can use it for income through out the year.

Do this((( BEFORE))) You transfer into a new LIF fund in order to draw your 25%.

If you do not do this you will not be able to draw from the NEW LIF until the next calendar year and would then have to withdraw from your 25% instead.

DO NOT just leave this up to your financial institution as we have found the advisers are not always fully informed of change..

Also Remember once you have transferred into a new LIF (((( You have only 60 days to make your 25% withdrawal . After that you have lost the opportunity. ))))

There have been new rules added to the FSCO web site since the New Year.To check them out go here.

http://www.fsco.gov.on.ca/english/pensions/locked-inaccountchanges.asp#how25

Q: Is the maximum annual income payment amount in the first year of a New LIF calculated based on the original amount transferred into the New LIF, or is it calculated using the adjusted amount after a 25% unlocking withdrawal has been made?

For example, a New LIF is purchased with $100,000 deposited into it from a LIRA on the date of purchase. Fifty days later, the owner withdraws 25%, which leaves $75,000 in the New LIF. Is the first year maximum annual income payment amount based on $100,000 or $75,000?

A: The maximum annual income payment for the first year is based on the balance of the New LIF at the start of the New LIF’s fiscal year, regardless of any amount subsequently withdrawn. In this example, the maximum would be based on $100,000.

(((((((Note, however, that if the money deposited into the New LIF came from an Old LIF, LRIF or another New LIF, the maximum annual income payment amount for the New LIF for that fiscal year would be zero.)))))))

WE are still going after 100% unlocking in Ontario as Saskatchewan did for their citizens in 2002.

If you are outraged how the Ontario government restricts the Retire's from (((Their Own Pension Money.))

((( This is Not Government Money.))) Please write to your Premier , Finance Minister , Minister Responsible for Seniors , And Your MPP and tell them you want these pensions unlocked 100%.

You All Take Care Bill Costello