BPAWC - Home
Regular luncheon and business meetings are held in Calgary:
Date: The first Tuesday of every month except July and August
Time: 12:00 noon
Location: The Royal Canadian Legion
Ogden Branch 154
2625-78th Avenue SE, Calgary
What's New?
Wednesday 26th March, 2008
Information and Recruitment meeting at the Castell Public Library at 12:00
and
Information and Recruitment Meeting at Hillhurst Community Centre 7:30 p.m.
FAN-OUT E-MAIL JANUARY, 2008
This e-mail was sent out to all members with e-mail addresses and others who are interested in the unfreezing of pensions. Another version went out to the Pensions Managers of a number of major Calgary employers who may have employees who would be interested in learning that they have a British pension and how to enhance it.
This e-mail contains information, which should be of interest to anyone who has worked, even for a year in the UK . Please forward it to any contacts or friends who might be in this situation.
If you have worked in the UK and paid National Insurance contributions, you are probably entitled to some portion of the UK State Pension ( the UK equivalent of the CPP). The size of the pension will depend on the number of contributions either made while working in the UK or made subsequently while working abroad. It is a good scheme: a person who has paid the full number of contributions will receive an annual pension of £4539 or £7263 for a married couple. Annual indexing increases are paid to most recipients so the pension keeps pace with inflation.
However, there is an extraordinary injustice in the payment of the pension for residents of Canada . As noted above, the pension is indexed; however once a Canadian resident draws the pension, his/her pension is frozen at that amount and he/she will receive no increases. Strangely, this significant limitation also applies to residents of Australia , New Zealand , South Africa and some other smaller commonwealth countries. However, it does not apply to residents in 35 other countries including the USA . The British Pensioners Association of Western Canada (BPAWC) has been fighting this discrimination as part of an International Consortium led by the CABP (Canadian Alliance of British Pensioners) based in Toronto and together with other pensioner organisations in Australia and South Africa.
The campaign is culminating in a suit against the British Government in the European Court of Human Rights, which is expected to be heard in 2008. If you are a resident of Canada and are drawing or will draw a UK pension, you should consider joining our Association. Your membership fee will go towards supporting this legal case and you will receive a quarterly newsletter, which will keep you up to date on progress. The cost is only $20 for a couple and $15 for a single membership. It is an investment in your future.
Ironically, it is possible to make additional contributions to the scheme from Canada and so increase your future pension on very favourable terms. The cost of additional contributions is usually recouped within a couple of years of retirement. For most people, making these extra contributions is an excellent investment and recent pension legislation has made it even more favourable for those who reach retirement age after 5th April 2010.
We are able to give members limited assistance about whom to contact and how to make extra contributions. An application form is attached. Our apologies if you receive this e-mail more than once. It just means that too many of your friends were thinking of you!
If you would like more information, please call 403-932-6775 or e-mail expats@britishpensioners.com