This is From CBC Radio 2 Sudbury (( Results of Grant Fleury's continues efforts))

Ross Kentner Commentary for Thursday, March 15th 2007:

People who heard my recent comment on Employment Insurance said they had never heard me so angry. Well, here’s another government scam that has me steamed. This time it’s the Ontario Government that is ripping us off. Now that I’m 65 and thinking of retiring in another five years, I’m looking at how I hope to fund my future.

It’s not a surprise to find I could have started saving sooner or could have been a smarter investor over time. But it’s a shock to learn that the instrument I thought was designed to furnish retirement income is not mine to use as I wish. And, while it may warehouse me when I can’t get around anymore, it will pay me at under the poverty rate when I finally have a chance to pursue hobbies or travel. That’s because, like many of you listening, my retirement account is locked-in.

You probably thought locked-in meant you can’t access your retirement account until you qualify to retire. Actually, it means the government has usurped control of your money and will only give it back to you in dribs and drabs…from 2.5 to 6.3 per cent a year. Do the math…it’s peanuts! You can’t live in Ontario in 2007 on that and you sure as heck won’t be able to live on it if you don’t retire for another 15 or 20 years!

Why did I call this a scam? The formula the government uses assumes you’ll live to 90. But according to Statistics Canada, less than one half of one per cent of us ever reach 90. If I die at 77, which is the average for Canadian men, I’ll never see by far the greater percentage of the money that I and, at one time, my employer paid into my retirement fund.

Can I prove this is a government-sponsored scam? What better proof than this? In 1999 when pension plans for Members of the Legislature were eliminated, a special bill was passed enabling MPPs to transfer their pensions to their personal RRSPs. Our elected members have full control over their previous pension funds. In other words, as things stand now, there is a law for Members of the Provincial Parliament and another law for the rest of us.

In opposition, the Liberals criticized this double standard. In office, they have done nothing about it. Andrea Horwath, MPP for Hamilton East has moved a private member’s bill to give all Ontario residents the option to transfer their locked-in pension funds to a RRIF. Bill 175 must be passed. There is no reason on earth for a government to control a taxpayer’s access to their own money. There’s even less when MPPs have unlocked their own pensions.