That didn’t protect her from worrying about paying the rent on her Halifax apartment this month after her pension was cut unconditionally by a British government it said she hadn’t proved she was still alive. Reynolds told CBC News she was surprised to receive a letter from the U.K. Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) “saying that they hadn’t received the life certificate they sent me in March and that my pension is being suspended because of receiving the certificate. “I was in shock, total shock, because I didn’t get the life certificate in March when they said they sent it.” “Rents are horribly expensive,” he added. “I don’t have a pension because they cut it in July. Well, I have a little savings account that I can draw on for a few months, but after that, I mean, I don’t know.” Halifax resident Barbara Reynolds said she was in “absolute shock” after being told the UK government had suspended her pension. (CBC News) The association representing British pensioners in Canada says thousands of people across Canada appear to have received similar layoff notices, all conveying the message that there is “no appeal” to the decision. Reynolds and other retirees insist they never received the request for proof of life. On Thursday morning, after repeated calls and letters of protest, Reynolds was relieved to receive a call from the DWP assuring her that her pension would be reinstated. Some other UK pensioners have had their end dates extended so they can collect proof of life. Others saw their payments stopped. A letter received by a Canadian from the UK Department of Work and Pensions. In the letter it is noted that “there is no right of appeal against this decision”. (CBC News) The DWP told CBC News it will reinstate affected pensioners — but only after they go through a process they have to start themselves. “We have put measures in place to allow life certificates to be cleared over the phone and encourage those affected to contact our International Pensions Centre,” the UK government ministry said. “All payments will be backdated.”
“A monumental cock-up”
“I’m still trying to get to the bottom of it,” British Conservative MP Sir Roger Gale told CBC News. “But it sounds like there has been a monumental cock-up on the part of the DWP, which has caused a huge amount of unnecessary distress.” Gale, who chairs the UK parliament’s all-party committee on frozen pensions, said “we are now obviously pushing to restore any pensions that are not being paid as a matter of urgency. But we also need to get to the bottom of what went wrong.” The DWP admitted that the original demand letters did not reach pensioners in Canada before they were cut off. But his explanations for this error have changed. Initially, the department suggested that Canada Post had misplaced the letters. “We understand the frustration of customers affected by Canada Post’s delays,” he told Britain’s Daily Telegraph and Daily Express newspapers. A Canada Post employee drives a truck through downtown Halifax on July 6, 2016. The UK government initially suggested that Canada Post was to blame for pensioners not receiving timely proof of life documents. (Darren Calabrese/The Canadian Press) But when pressed by CBC News to clarify whether Canada Post was indeed to blame, the DWP responded with a brief statement with a subtle but significant change in language: “We understand the frustration and concerns of customers in Canada affected by postal delays.” . When asked by CBC News if it is sticking to its original allocation of responsibilities, the DWP did not respond directly. Canada Post’s Phil Legault told CBC News that “while we continue to investigate and make inquiries with Royal Mail, we have not received any specific complaints on this matter.” Gale told CBC News the claim was never believable at first. “I find it hard to believe that an organization known to be as efficient as Canada Post would somehow manage to lose thousands of letters,” he said. “It just doesn’t add up. “So it seems to me that someone in the DWP in the UK made this claim to try to justify why the messages were not received and why people therefore suddenly found that their pensions were effectively terminated without warning.”
Retirees don’t buy an explanation
Reynolds was equally skeptical of the DWP’s initial claim that “Canada Post delays” were to blame. “I highly doubt it was Canada Post’s fault. Why were so many post offices across Canada going astray for this one item, the life certificate?” he said. “So I would say it’s the pension service. That’s where they have a problem.” Ian Andexser of Nanaimo, BC heads the Canadian Alliance of British Pensioners and has also received notice that his pension will be terminated. He won a one-month reprieve from that limit while he gathers the proof he needs to show the DWP he’s still very much alive. “Because I know these proof of life forms well, I can assure you that if I had received the original it would have gone straight back to the UK to ensure my pension would not be suspended,” he said. “I think it’s completely despicable for the British government to turn around and blame the Canadian mail system for this, which they have essentially done, as you can see in a number of newspaper articles published in the UK.”
Unequal treatment for Canadian pensioners
Andexser said that even if the current non-payment crisis is fixed, the UK government continues to treat its roughly 130,000 pensioners in Canada unfairly and discriminatory by refusing to adjust their pensions for inflation, as it does for British pensioners in the USA and Europe. “People who have worked all their lives in the UK and paid into the UK system should be treated equally with every British pensioner around the world,” he said, decrying what he called a “ridiculous situation” where a British pensioner who settles in the US ends up receiving more money than another British pensioner who has made the same contributions. Gale agreed that’s the crux of the problem for British retirees in Canada, and one that will remain even after the current mess is fixed. “It must be absolutely ridiculous that someone living on one side of Niagara Falls in Canada has a frozen pension, while a hundred meters across the river in the United States, that pension is upgraded,” he said. The British government has argued that it cannot change pensions in Canada because it does not have a reciprocal agreement with Canada, as it does with the US and nations in Europe and elsewhere. Gale said the situation is not for lack of effort on Canada’s part. “Canada has made the offer to enter into a reciprocal agreement,” he said. “The British government, having hidden behind this argument of non-reciprocity, is now saying, ‘Well, we don’t want a reciprocal agreement.’ “I’m sorry, you can’t have it both ways. Canada made the offer. We’ll have to take the offer and then honorably pay what’s owed.” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meets with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson during the G7 Summit in Biarritz, France on August 24, 2019. British pensioners in Canada are calling on Ottawa to pressure London to adjust its pensions for inflation. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press) In any case, Gale said, “this idea that there must be a mutual arrangement to make the analogy of a pension possible is apt nonsense.” Even without a mutual agreement, Canadian pensioners living in the UK already have inflation-linked pensions because the Canadian government unilaterally decided to do so. “Canada respects its retirees no matter where they live in the world,” Andexser said.
Commercial leverage
This unequal treatment is costly not only to the individual British pensioner in Canada, but also to the Canadian taxpayer – who must help when British pensioners slide into genteel poverty. In addition, hundreds of millions of dollars that would otherwise be spent in the Canadian economy are withheld. Since Canada’s calls for change have been rebuffed by a U.K. government that is saving money under the status quo, Andexser said, it’s time for Canada to use the leverage it has with the U.K. “I have tried repeatedly to contact Trade Minister Mary Ng to point out to her that, recently, pension issues have been included in Britain’s post-Brexit trade negotiations with some of its countries [European Economic Area]”And the answer I keep getting from the trade department is that pensions should not be part of trade deals. “Well, that’s nonsense. Britain has already set the precedent. And for us, it’s not unreasonable that Canada should insist that this part of the trade talks should include ending the frozen pension issue that the British are suffering retirees in Canada. .” Inflationary increases in the cost of staples like groceries are accelerating the decline in the value of British pensions in Canada, says the head of the Canadian Alliance of British Pensioners. (Ivanoh Demers/Radio-Canada) Andexser said that while UK pensions have in the past steadily but slowly lost value, they are now being eroded many times faster due to dramatically higher inflation. The cost to the Canadian economy is also now rising much faster, he added. “And I just pray for all those people who are suffering in Canada that the Canadian trade delegation will finally recognize that this is the best opportunity they’ve had in over 25 years to insist that Britain stop…
