SUPPORT FOR HUMANITARIAN ORGANIZATIONS (adopted 2007 AGM)

TAX CREDIT REDUCTION (adopted 1995 AGM)

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PENSION    (adopted 1994 AGM)

1. Introduction
    1.1  All employed persons should have access to a pension plan that will guarantee retirement
           benefits, based on salary and service in employment.

2. Pension Plans - General
    2.1 A pension should provide a person completing a full working career to continue in retirement
         the standard of living attained at the end of that career.

    2.2 A pension (or aggregation of pensions) based upon a short working career or a series of
         careers should provide a person with a living standard in retirement that accurately and
         reasonably reflects the person’s period of employment.

    2.3 Pension payments should be adjusted on a regular, automatic basis in accordance with
          annual increases in the Canadian Consumer Price Index.

    2.4 A pension plan should provide a pension to the surviving spouse of no less than sixty per cent
         (60%) of the original pension, except where that provision is waived, in writing, by the spouse.

    2.5 A pension plan should recognize common law spouses (as defined by provincial statutes) in
         the same manner as legally married spouses.

   2.6 A pension plan should provide that, where significant improvements are made in the plan,
       provisions exist for the re-examination and adjustment of the benefits currently provided retired
       plan members.

   2.7 Pension plan members (retired and active) should have a major role in making decisions affecting
        plan administration and the investment of pension funds.

   2.8 Medical and dental health benefits (comparable to those provided actively employed members
        of the pension plan) should be provided to retired members of the plan, including surviving
        spouse in receipt of a survivor pension from the plan.

   2.9 Governments should, in consultation with pension plan sponsors and plan members, set
        standards and regulate the administration and funding of pension plans.

   2.10 All pension plans should be fully funded.

3. Pension Plans - Federal Government
    3.1 Teachers should be entitled to have continuing representation on the Advisory Board of the
         Canada Pension Plan.

    3.2 Old Age Security should be paid on an universal basis to all eligible Canadians.

    3.3 Old Age Security should be established and maintained at fifteen per cent (15%) of the
        Average Industrial Wage.

    3.4 Old Age Security should not be subject to any special tax, and the existing " claw-back "
       of the Income Tax Act should be repealed.

4. Teacher Pension Plans - Reciprocity
    4.1 Teacher pension plans in Canada should participate in a single reciprocal agreement (based
        upon an equitable and actuarially determined transfer of funds ) that would provide teachers
       who transfer from one pension plan to another with full recognition for previous service in the
       new jurisdiction for that period of time.
 

TAX CREDIT REDUCTION  (adopted 1995 AGM)

1. ACER-CART is opposed to the reduction of the tax credit for taxable seniors.

REPRESENTATION ON PROVINCIAL PENSION BOARD AND COMMITTEES (adopted 1999 AGM)

1. Member organizations of ACER-CART should continue to seek representation on provincial
    pension boards and committees.

REPRESENTATION ON THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS (adopted 2000 AGM)

1. It is recommended that the member organizations name or elect a person other than its
    President who will be available to serve as the ACER-CART Director for at least two if not three years.

2. It is recommended that the position of the ACER-CART Representative be a specified position
   within the provincial association.

3. It is recommended that a budget be established that will allow for the expenses of the
   Standing Committees that are formed and for the expenses of the President in carrying out
   his/her duties.

HEALTH-CARE IN CANADA  (adopted 2002 AGM)

1. The five historic principles of the Canada Health Act (1984) (universality, access, comprehensiveness,
    portability and public administration) shall define any vision, current or renewed, for publicly funded
   health care in Canada. These principles shall inform all ACER-CART interventions on health
   care in Canada.

4. Health care shall be deemed to include education, prevention, diagnosis and counselling, and
    shall be the element upon which all health care pivots in a Canadian comprehensive health care
    system.

5. Seniors constitute an increasing proportion of Canadian society. Seniors have special needs
   and ACER-CART, on their behalf, urges health care policy- makers to take an integrated approach
   to health care, one that will ensure seniors a measure of independence commensurate with their
  history; will ensure a quality of life and death with dignity through care at home, in long-term care
  facilities, and in hospital settings.

6. Many Canadians rely on medications for their very lives. Given the proportion of seniors making
   up the Canadian population and their special needs, a review of costs in providing necessary
  drugs is mandatory. This review shall include, inter alia: the way pharmaceuticals are prescribed
  to an ageing population and the benefits to be derived from more holistic approaches to medical
  treatment. ACER-CART believes that adequate provision of medication ought to form an
  essential component in the national health care program.

7. All citizens of Canada have a right to health care. System efficiencies, streamlining operations,
   and restructuring health care facilities shall not be accepted as sufficient reason to deny
   citizens this right, regardless of location or wealth. It is conceded, however, that such services
   need to be provided as efficiently as possible.

8. Health care shall be provided out of revenues gleaned by governments from public taxation.

9. Possible expansion of publicly funded health services shall not compromise the availability and
   quality of those medical services currently insured, except for those services no longer deemed
   basic or required.

10. Organizations of retired teachers will continue to be involved with the development of
     health care strategies intended to benefit Canadians of all generations, in a meaningful and
     continuing way.

11. ACER-CART urges all levels of government to determine, in concert, their share of the costs
    of health care and make a commitment to paying such shares each year for several years
    and that information concerning such agreements is made public.

The following is a consideration of where ACER-CART stands in terms of Health Policy, particularly in the area of long term health care..

A. General Policy on Health:

1. ACER-CART supports and accepts as policy the continued acceptance of the five core principles of the Canada Health Act(1984): universality, access, comprehensiveness, portability and public administration as trhe basis of any future national or provincial health care policy.

2. To ensure that national standards for medicare are adhered to, free from undue political influence, ACER-CART supports the establishment of a National Medicare Oversight Council independent of government. Its mandate would be to monitor the implementation of national standards and, where advisable, to propose new ones.

3. ACER-CART supports the establishment of a funding formula which would clarify the proportion of financing for health care which could be expected on a long term basis from taxation revenues collected by the various levels of government: fedral, provincial/territorial and municipal.

4. To meet the growing demands for home care, particularly for seniors, ACER-CART supports the establishment of a long term national plan for home care as an integral part of health care services for those who would benefit from such care.

5. To ensure fairness in the cost of medications especially pertaining to seniors, ACER-CART supports the development of a plan and a framework for a national Pharmacare programme to be created and implemented in a reasonable length of time.

6. With a view to meeting the special health care needs of seniors, Governments, federal and provincial, should work towards the creation of geriatric centres whose mandate would include the provision of health care to the elderly outside of hospital settings.

7. ACER-CART supports the inclusion of hearing aids, eje glasses and diabetic supplies in publicly insured programmes.

B. Long Term Health Care:

1. Long term health care, pharmacare, visual health care are but some of the main health issues facing seniors.

2. In the area of long term health care, Governments, federal and provincial, should provide adequate resources to enable seniors to:

  c. live in dignity in their own homes and with a standard of living, when spouses have to be institutionalized, that is not threatened by ruinous income splitting.

3. While income may be used as a means test, its division should be assessed with recognition that one spouse left to live in a community when one is institutionalized has much more than half of the living expenses that were needed before separation. When governments assess the contributions towards long term institutional or home care, hard earned and often frugally saved assets should not be taken into account.
 

SUPPORT FOR HUMANITARIAN ORGANIZATIONS  (adopted 2007 AGM)