British Pensioners Association of Western Canada

Background - Expatriate British Pensioners

There are over a million expatriate British Pensioners around the world. Just under half live in countries where the pension they receive is frozen at the same level received when it is first received. Over half live in countries where their pension is uprated every year. Expatriates whose pensions are frozen live predominately in the Commonwealth countries of Australia, Canada and South Africa.

The amount of our pension we receive is determined by where we choose to live.

This means that with every passing year, more and more elderly ex-British citizens, many of whom who have retired in Canada to be with their families, receive seniors' pensions of ever diminishing worth, even though they have paid the same compulsory sums into the British pension scheme during their working lives as others who live in countries where fully indexed pensions are received.

The Canadian Government has been very supportive of our struggle. It is estimated that they have to support British pensioners who are struggling to the tune of $25 million in Guaranteed Income Supplement payments . The estimated loss to the Canadian economy because of the lack of indexation of British pensions is around $300 million per annum.

In contrast, Canadians who have retired to live in the United Kingdom receive fully indexed CPP pensions from the Canadian Government.

In Canada, there are two organisations working together to fight this injustice. We, the British Pensioners Association of Western Canada are working together with the Toronto based organisation, the Canadian Alliance of British Pensioners (CABP), who are the lead organisation of the International Consortium of British Pensioners. Other organisations in this Consortium are, British Pensions in Australia (BPiA), the British Australian Pensioner Association (BAPA) and the South African Alliance of British Pensioners (SAABP). There is strength in our unity and numbers. Working together we have achieved way more than any single organisation could have hoped.

The British Government's response to us has been principally that they cannot afford to uprate pensions of people who do not live in the United Kingdom, and there are no reciprocal agreements requiring them to do so with Canada (or other frozen countries, for that matter). They conveniently ignore that

over half the British pensioners living overseas already receive indexed pensions
it has been agreed many times that a reciprocal agreement is not necessary to unfreeze pensions, all that is necessary is the will of parliament. Most recently James Purnell as Minister for Pensions Reform said on 25 January 2007 as recorded in Hansard "Of course it is not legally necessary to have a reciprocal agreement before making such payments. Any Government could do that unilaterally."
in any event,many frozen countries are anxious to conclude a reciprocal agreement and the British Government will not do so
enormous sums are saved by the British Government by British citizens who retire abroad and their host countries save the British taxpayer approximately £5,000 per capita in health care and other pensioner costs -- a saving to the British government of some 2.7 billion pounds!

So far the fight to have pensions indexed has been taken through the British Courts as a Human Rights claim with South African, Annette Carson being the plaintiff. The case was rejected in the High Court, the Court of Appeal and finally in the House of Lords. Lord Carswell was the one dissenting judge who gave a dissenting opinion in favour of Ms Carson. "There is no justification for paying some (pensioners) less than others."

The case has now been taken to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg with 13 plaintiffs from Canada, Australia and South Africa. One of the plaintiffs is one of our Calgary members. Once again they are claiming discrimination: they are being discriminated against because others with the same national insurance contribution record receive an indexed pension while they do not.

The case, Jackson et al, has been fast tracked in the European Court and although there have been a number of delays, we hope that we might have some judgment this year (2008).