No easy task

Dear editor:
As committee activities co-ordinator for the SRAPEA, I attended a number of council meetings across the district (Fort Frances, Alberton, and Emo), with a couple more to go.
The topic I covered dealt with the pension fund and solvency deficiency of the AbitibiBowater—now known as Resolute Forest Products Ltd.—pension plan.
The purpose of this venture is to garner as much support as we can in a bipartisan effort to effect change in legislation and regulations to protect the hard-working employees’ pension plan, funds, and benefits.
In order to effect meaningful legislative change, especially to the Creditor Protection Act, we have to get the attention of the political parties elected to protect us.
This is not an easy task, given the fact that most of these elected officials could care less about us or our hard-earned pension savings earned over a worker’s lifetime.
Many employees worked and paid into their pension plan for 20, 30, and some even 40 years—only to have it stolen from them when they retire because our laws allow it to happen.
That is why the laws must be changed.
Companies must be forced to live up to their obligation(s) dealing with workers’ pensions, and neither the company nor the bankers ought not to be allowed to use our pension funds as a backdrop for loans.
Our pension plan is in a crisis. The solvency ratio of the global plan has fallen somewhere below 69 percent—this is not enough money going into the plan to sustain it.
Unless a major cash infusion is made immediately, we project the company, along with the government regulators, will cut all pensions by 10-15 percent early on into the New Year.
In other words, we are facing the demise of our pension retirement income. That is what we are fighting for.
The meetings conducted with area municipal councils all are going well and we are extremely grateful for the support we are receiving from them.
To all retirees and surviving spouses: we are fighting for you. You have a direct and personal interest, and should get involved in this fight ASAP.
Our next SRAPEA meeting will be held Wednesday, Nov. 14 at 7 p.m. at the Sister Kennedy Centre in Fort Frances. Hope to see you there.
In closing, we see the theft of our pension funds as a clear case of elder abuse.
Thank you for the time and space in your paper.
Yours truly,
Wendell Stevens
Committee activities
chair, SRAPEA,
Fort Frances, Ont.