It felt a lot like homecoming week in the regional district boardroom when Dan Albas, MP for Okanagan-Coquihalla, addressed the regional district corporate services committee on April 19.
The former regional district board member received a warm welcome from the committee, many of whom served with Albas on the board prior to his successful bid for the MP’s office last year.
Albas began by providing the board with the government’s reasoning behind plans to raise the elegibility age for Old Age Pensions from 65 to 67. He cited the declining ratios between workers and retired citizens (down from a seven to one ratio in 1970 to four to one today) and projected costs for OAS to rise from 36 1/2 billion to 108 billion as the main justifications for the change.
“Other nations have already experienced a similar shift,” he said of the changing demographics.
Albas said the changes would not affect anyone born before 1958, with plans for a slow transition to take place between 2023 and 2029.
“This may be a bit disconcerting, but I agree with what you’ve said,” Area “C” Director Allan Patton said. “But we are imposing this on the generation after the baby boomers. This should affect me - it’s a problem our generation is creating - we should move into this right away.”
Area “D” Director Tom Siddon stated, “We are all concerned about the future. If we get the economy right, this may or may not be a problem 10 years down the road.
Do you like your job?” Siddon then asked Albas how he was handling the rigours of the job after approximately one year, adding that Albas was winning new friends and more influence in Ottawa.
Siddon also wanted to discuss the recent changes to the Fisheries Act that would see the federal government leave environmental approvals for local watershed protection to the province, except for very large projects. Siddon told Albas that the present federal government was offloading protections to the province, and dismantling habitat protection in fisheries, which would result in “significant environmental risk.”
Area “F” Director Michael Brydon said that the OAP issue was a “complicated problem.”
“By extending the retirement age, we are increasing the labour force,” he noted, “That’s okay if there is a demand for it - how much of the GDP (gross domestic product) is supporting each pensioner? Wealth comes from productivity - we need a more ‘nuanced’ approach.”
The directors were almost completely silent on the issue of MP pensions. Keremeos Director Manfred Bauer was the only one to address the issue.
“One of the issues surrounding the changes to the OAS involves selling by leadership,” he said, noting MP’s present pension plan.
Bauer said that, coming from Europe, he was familiar with the retirement age fluctuating. Bauer also spoke about the federal employment services program, noting that the downloading of program services to provincial budgets has resulted in downgraded budgets and lost services.
“The finances come from employees and employers,” he told Albas, “and the money should come back to those programs.”
RDOS Board Chair Dan Ashton asked Albas about Bill C-311, which regarded the importation of wine across provincial boundaries. Albas replied that he had been working to get a Prohibition era law that prohibited citizens from crossing provincial boundaries with wine repealed, allowing a personal exemption for individuals to transport wine or have wine shipped to them across provincial boundaries.
Albas added that he was hopeful the bill would get third reading by the end of May, before being passed to the Senate. He noted that the bill had received considerable support from all parties.