Past News Items

HST

In the wake of the referendum decision to eliminate the Harmonized Sales Tax, seniors can breathe only a short sigh of relief. British Columbians now must engage in a new debate. We need a tax system that is fair, respects the ability of individuals to pay, and recognizes our shared responsibilities to each other.

When Adrian Dix launched his campaign to become leader of the B.C. NDP, his clear priority was equality. Everyone should have opportunities. And corporations should pay their fair share. It was in that spirit that he campaigned so vigorously and effectively against the HST – which eliminated consumption taxes from corporations and required people and families to pay hundreds of millions more each year.

In a civil society, we all have responsibilities as well as benefits, and that includes corporations. You'd never know it to listen to their paid spokespeople at the Fraser Institute. On the very day the referendum results were announced, they called on the provincial government to eliminate corporate income taxes. They have no shame. Corporations benefit directly from all the things that taxes pay for: educated workers, safe communities, transportation systems, public health care, the rule of law and much more. Corporations currently pay 10 percent on their profits, which is hardly excessive. How would you like your taxes to be based on what you have left after you've paid your bills?

Giving corporations a free ride is a deeply flawed economic strategy. It requires the rest of us to pay more, in the faint hope they will invest, produce and create jobs. But why would corporations invest when much current productive capacity is idle? Why would they produce more if customers are reeling under a higher tax burden and unable to buy their goods and services? Businesses need paying customers, not another tax giveaway.

Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world, recently wrote an open letter to the U.S. government. He urged the government to increase taxes on billionaires. He noted that he pays a far lower rate of taxes than anyone else in his office.

The same situation prevails in Canada. The richest one percent of Canadians pays a lower rate of taxes than everyone else.

Part of the problem is consumption taxes. The more we pay through consumption taxes, the less we pay through taxes which are linked to ability to pay. People of moderate means pay a much higher share of their income in sales taxes, Hydro rates and Medical Service Plan premiums.

It's been a constant trend under the B.C. Liberals. They have consistently reduced taxes for corporations and the wealthy, shifting their responsibilities to the rest of us. It's a trend that must be reversed if we are to have a civil society where benefits, opportunities, and responsibilities are shared equitably and fairly among all residents of our province.

A new COSCO initiative to promote health

The success of COSCO’s health promotion workshops has led to new steps to ensure their

continued success and expansion to meet the needs of even more seniors. COSCO began the process of establising a society, separate from COSCO, to fund and promote the workshops, which are presented free of charge

What started as a rather modest endeavour has developed into a major source of information for seniors who want to stay well and active. To meet this need, COSCO has established the COSCO Seniors’ Health and Wellness Institute Society as a charitable institution with the ability to issue tax receipts for income tax purposes

Frequently asked questions
By Sheila Pither, Program Coordinator

What is the Institute

It is an organization that was created in 2010 to take care of the health literacy work that COSCO began to do in 2007. Over the four years since then eighteen health promotion workshops have been developed to encourage seniors to focus on preventing accidents and illness, instead of having to endure pain and suffering

Why have a separate organization?

We needed to be able to seek funding from sources that would be closed to COSCO itself. Many foun dations give grants only to groups that are designated as charitable organizations with the accompanying right to issue receipts that are eli gible for income tax deductions. We applied to the federal government to achieve the necessary designation and were successful in acquiring a tax number.

So the Institute is funded only by donations and grants?

Right. COSCO dues and donations aren’t used to fund the work of the Institute, though until we founded the Institute grants were given in the name of COSCO and kept in separate account devoted to health promotion. COSCO is now donating those funds to the Institute as they are required. 

How is the health promotion work carried out?

We began in 2007 with one work shop, Falls Prevention. Since then we have gradually added seventeen more and before the end of 2011 we will be adding a further series of topics. PowerPoint is used to give the presentation and each participant is provided with a handout to take home. Also, everybody is asked to plan how they might change their own behaviours and routines to in crease their chances of staying safe and well. The workshops are avail able free of charge to any group of seniors, anywhere in the Province. Facilitators who are themselves 55 or older are trained to lead them, thus carrying out COSCO’s motto: Seniors Helping Seniors. 

How are the workshops developed?

The topics are often chosen be cause of suggestions and requests that are made by people attending workshops but many times our knowledge of the health and safety issues that seniors face are selfevident. Then we consult experts to be sure that the information we are giving is up-to-date and accurate. In some cases graduate students in gerontology have written the work shops. As program coordinator I have written some others. Lately we have been approached by pro fessors in medical faculties to work with their students to develop work shops. One on continence is being piloted in the next short while. Usu ally the workshops take from 60 to 90 minutes to present.nbsp;

How can I find out what workshops are available?

In addition to being listed here, you’ll always find the most up-todate list on the COSCO website which is www.coscobc.ca. Also you can email me and I will send you a detailed list of the workshops. 

Is there much demand for the workshops?

Yes, and it’s constantly increas ing. So far we have presented 270 separate workshops, attended by more than 4,400 people. We have never turned down a request for a workshop, even if the destination

Number of seniors living in poverty jumps by 25%

Gail Harmer, Chairperson ,COSCO Housing Committee-Wednesday, Nov. 24, 2010,

Campaign 2000 released StatsCan figures that indicate for the first time in decades, Canada's seniors' poverty increased by 25 percent just as the economic downtrend hit between 2007-2008! The poverty increase for Canadian seniors was the largest compared to any other Canadian group. Senior women made up 80 percent of that increase!

This is a alarming particularly just as the baby boomers are turning 65 in 2011. Many seniors may choose to stay in the workforce but as the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives pointed out in an interview with the Globe and Mail Nov. 25, most of those affected are women and since a significant portion of senior women have lived close to the poverty line most of their lives they may well be tired enough to opt out of the workforce once they reach 65.

How will these Canadian women maintain the adequate, affordable, safe housing that is internationally recognized as one of the major social determinants of health? No wonder current Canadian policies lead to increases in our health care expenditures! When are we going to wake up and realize that we have to spend money in a decent national housing programme to save much more money in the health care field to say nothing of mitigating the stress of young families who will be burdened with caring for their indigent aged parents and grandparents?

Campaign 2000 is a cross Canada movement to build awareness and support for a 1989 all-party House of Commons resolution to end child poverty in Canada by the year 2000. For more info, go to http://www.campaign2000.ca/

Betty Krawczyk a lifer? Feisty ol' Grandma!

By Rafe Mair

Most will know that that Betty Krawczyk is an environmental protester and has been in jail a number of times. Most recently she spent 10 months in the slammer for refusing to obey a court order keeping her off public land that Peter Kiewit, the Campbell government’s always favoured construction company, was using to take the Sea-to-Sky highway to the considerable displeasure of many. She served her term then appealed it on a matter of principle.

The Campbell government instructed Crown Counsel to seek a ruling that Betty is a habitual criminal and ask the Court Of Appeal to consider life imprisonment of this 82 year old lady, In support of this argument, Crown Counsel presented two cases where serial crimes had brought long prison terms, even life. Both these two cases involved violent sex assaults on children.

Why do I connect this application directly to Gordon (Pinocchio) Campbell’s government?

Because no Crown counsel would deal with this highly politicized case, using these horrific cases in support, without clear direction of the Attorney-General and it’s inconceivable that Campbell would not have OK’d the decision.

When it hit the fan and the public expressed outrage that these two cases would be used in Betty’s case the Crown, disingenuously tried to explain that the cases they pleaded were only to sway the judges to look at Betty’s long history of devil disobedience and give her a longer penalty, even life and that these cases were only cited in support of that argument.

This is bullshit and there’s no other word for it.

The principle that the court can interfere with the lower court and increase the sentence need hardly be pled. The Court of Appeal understands that well and needs no help from the Crown’s lawyers and their pedophilia cases – or any other cases for that matter - on that point. That being the case, why would the government’s lawyers raise these two cases?

The answer is simple and disgraceful. This is a clear attempt to cow the environmental movement into taking their bad medicine, like it or not.

(I impute no impropriety to Crown Counsel. They can plead such cases as they wish, the propriety or relevance of such will be to the Court. I don't for a moment suggest that they were any part of the political decision [sic] I allege)

What’s this really all about?

There are a number of river projects on the horizon. These arise out of Independent Power Companies (IPPs) damming our rivers and selling the power to BC Hydro. (The companies don’t like to use the word “dam” and much prefer “weir”)

In order to be fully aware of what these projects are all about one must be aware of these points

1. Far from being small operations they block up to 90% of the stream or river. To see for yourself, just go to the Ashlu project just north of Squamish. Not only do these projects kill fish by silting the river while construction is on, they permanently damage if not outright kill fish populations. As if that wasnt bad enough, they must clear-cut large swaths of trees to build roads and erect transmission lines. They are environmental catastrophes and not only damage unto death the fish but do the same to the ecology the river sustains. The damage to wildlife is incalculable.

2. These are not little Mom and Pop companies but huge like Ledcor, General Electric and the Dupont Family trust.

3. BC Hydro has been compelled by the Campbell government to enter into sweetheart deals with these IPPs on a take or pay basis (Hydro pays even though it doesn’t need or use the power at double or more the export rate and 8 times more expensive than Hydro makes its own power.

4. Because the IPPs can only generate power when their rivers are high from the annual run-off, BC Hydro can’t use the power they generate. It has full reservoirs and lots of power of its own. This gives Hydro two choices – it can use the IPP power instead of their own, at 8 times the cost or they can sell it on the open market at less than ½ what they paid for it. It’s worth noting, I think, that we the citizens of BC are the only shareholders of BC Hydro and it’s us that’s getting ripped off.

5. BC Hydro is going broke according to economist Erik Andersen and can only be kept alive by raising electricity rates to industry and you and me. Hydro’s only alive on paper because it has been using an accounting procedure whereby they can take their accumulated losses, package them and say that because they are owed this money it’s not a loss but an asset! No kidding! The BC Auditor-General in a recent report confirmed that and commanded them to change.

6. Over the years, BC Hydro has declared a very large dividend each year to our government in the hundreds of mullions of dollars. Hydro can no longer do that because of the foregoing so, guess what? They will raise your electricity bills so they have enough money to give you your dividend.

The Campbell government, looking ahead, has threatened, through the Betty Krawczyk case, draconian legal consequences to any who dare interfere with their plans.

I would call shame on them except they have demonstrated over and over again that they have no shame.

The Clean Energy Act is worse than the HST Clean Energy Act will cost billions for BC

by Marvin Shaffer
June 22, 2010

While the HST has captured all the attention, the province’s passage of the Clean Energy Act in the recent legislative session is a far more serious matter.
The Act will impose billions of dollars of unnecessary costs on British Columbians. It is, simply put, bad legislation.

The Clean Energy Act imposes a legal requirement for energy “self-sufficiency” for BC Hydro. Self-sufficiency sounds positive. But in fact “self-sufficiency,” as defined by the BC government, will simply force BC Hydro to buy a large amount of high cost power from private producers that is not needed to ensure a reliable supply of electricity.

In a hydroelectric system like BC Hydro’s, the main reliability question is how to guard against the impact of drought, when low water conditions limit electricity production.

With “self-sufficiency,” BC Hydro will have to manage this low water risk by entering into long term contracts with private power producers for new supply — supply that in most years will be surplus to BC Hydro’s requirements.

The Act does not put any limits on the price BC Hydro has to pay for electricity. Nor is there any room to consider the alternatives that BC Hydro could have pursued to ensure a reliable supply. The legislation dictates that BC Hydro must ignore the back-up capability of the Burrard Thermal plant, even in drought years. It must assume that the province will not let BC Hydro use any of the Columbia River treaty power it receives each year. It must pretend there is no “spot market” (one-off sales or purchases) for power, even though such markets exist in the US and Alberta, and BC Hydro in fact regularly buys and sells electricity in those markets for trading purposes.

BC Hydro itself has estimated that “self-sufficiency” will add in excess of a billion dollars to its costs. Environmentalists are concerned that the generation and transmission line development it will cause will have significant adverse environmental effects. Despite all these concerns, the government has yet to release any analysis in support of this measure. There is no evidence that it is in the broader public interest.

In addition to “self-sufficiency,” the Clean Energy Act accelerates a requirement for “insurance,” increasing the amount of surplus BC Hydro is being forced to buy. It is not at all clear what contingency this insurance is intended to address or what benefit it will offer. All that is clear is that it will add hundreds of millions of dollars more in costs that ratepayers will ultimately have to pay. BC Hydro’s own forecasts suggest that all of this surplus will be sold at a loss.

Then there are the export provisions. In addition to buying privately-produced power for dubious self-sufficiency and insurance reasons, BC Hydro will have to buy even more privately produced power, in this case explicitly for export. The Act requires BC Hydro to pursue export opportunities that private power producers will not pursue on their own.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the export of power — after all, we export pretty well everything else. The issue here is forcing BC Hydro to be the export agent for private developers.

BC Hydro will be responsible for providing all of the transmission, backup and other services needed to create a reliable, marketable product. However, it is not at all clear that BC Hydro will be able to earn an appropriate return on the services it provides and risks it assumes. Under the Act, Cabinet can order BC Hydro to buy power for export even if its management and Board do not consider the market prices sufficient to justify the costs it must incur. There is the obvious potential for political interference and abuse, particularly with the legislation’s elimination of any independent oversight and transparency of the implications of these export (and other BC Hydro) activities.

The Clean Energy Act is not really about clean energy. Requiring an unnecessary amount of generation and transmission development, with all of the environmental impacts that causes, is not particularly clean or green. Nor is it about developing BC's hydroelectric resources in the general public interest. The Act is designed, first and foremost, to expand private power development throughout the province by forcing BC Hydro to buy power it does not need for its own purposes, and to buy power for export regardless of the adequacy of the return.

The power development the Act is designed to encourage is hugely expensive in economic and environmental terms. The Act does not in any way recognize these costs, and the government has not provided any analysis or made any effort to demonstrate that the benefits justify the costs. Worst in many ways, the Act does not provide for any judgment by the BC Hydro management and Board of the trade-offs these measures entail, nor is there to be any independent oversight by the BC Utilities Commission or anyone else.

The Clean Energy Act is bad legislation. It’s far worse than the HST. This is the legislation that British Columbians should be fighting to repeal.

DUMB METERS

How Gordon Campbell Wants You to Squander a Billion Dollars

Jim Quail, Executive Director, BC Public Interest Advocacy Centre

The wheels are spinning in high gear selling us the dumbest single scheme the Premier’s Office has come up with so far for BC Hydro. They want us to buy a billiondollar plan to hang hi-tech meters on every home in the province. All by itself, this would add about 8.3% to every household’s electricity bill, even taking account of offsetting savings like meter-reading.

There is no doubt that these gadgets, which basically add a computer and a  communication system to electricity meters, can do lots of things that the simple, cheap, reliable meters we have today can’t do. The important question, however, is whether those new features (like animal-noise reminders to turn off the lights) are worth the gigantic price tag. 

The main function of a "smart meter" is to track how much power you use minute by minute through the day, and relay this information to BC Hydro. This enables different prices depending on the time of consumption. Electricity used during peak times (weekday mornings and evenings) would cost more than off-peak – say, in the middle of the night. 

The point of this is to encourage us to shift our energy-use from peak times, when the system is under the heaviest demand, to the slack times. That sounds sensible unless you try to apply it to most people’s real lives. 

There is a reason why we use more power during peak times. Take a typical family with working parents and school-age kids. Most of their energy-intensive activities occur in the rush to get everybody up, dressed, fed, and out the door, and later when they all converge at home late in the afternoon for dinner, homework, baths and bed. All of that activity would attract a high on-peak price. Energy-heavy household chores, like laundry, can only be done during those two slices of the day. . . that is, unless someone wants to set the alarm to get up at midnight to run the clothes dryer. 

There is only so much that family can do, with all the will in the world, to shift their energy patterns.

Hydro claims that smart meters will prevent electricity theft. They have pulled from the air a guesstimate that some $200 million a year is stolen by grow-ops, using cables to bypass the existing meters, but with no evidence to support this figure. The biggest problem with this is that smart meters would make it easier, not harder, to steal electricity.Tests in California have shown that smart metering systems are relatively easy to hack. Assuming that organized crime has access to computer expertise, we would hand them a simple way to steal electricity without detection. The White House has raised concerns about the potential for someone with a grudge against the US to use a smart meter as a point of entry to the national power grid, and has identified this as threat to national security.

There is another big problem with smart metering as an energy conservation strategy.

Smart meters and "time-of-use" rates don’t really do much to reduce how much energy we use, especially once the novelty factor wears off. Their main impact is to shift what time we use energy. If our typical family went to the trouble of running the clothes dryer at midnight (saving perhaps a couple of pennies on their energy bill), they would still use the same amount of power to dry the same load of clothes.

Smart meters’ contribution is to smooth out our daily consumption pattern a bit. That helps relieve our need for "capacity" rather than energy. To apply a metaphor, capacity is the horsepower of the system, not the amount of gas it burns.

Capacity comes in huge expensive lumpy investments, like new transmission lines or huge hydro dams. Smoothing out the daily consumption pattern a little has a negligible impact. We’re talking about postponing the need for a major transmission line by a few weeks or months, perhaps, if smart meters perform as perfectly as their proponents claim.

Hydro claims that smart meters will pay for themselves in system savings. If this were so, why did the government need to pass legislation to shield them from open public scrutiny? Taking away the Utilities Commission’s power to study the cost effectiveness of this billion-dollar investment means that Hydro customers will never have an opportunity to test the inflated promises. Instead, all we have is a "trust me."

As in most gee-whiz solutions, the costs are real. The benefits are theoretical.

To make matters even worse, BC Hydro is shying away from the full implementation of the time-of-use rates that are the main point of the billion-dollar investment. They say they want to leave it up to each customer to choose whether to stay with our present two-tiered rate based on total consumption, or go with a new two-tiered rate based on time of day.

BC Hydro’s problem here is that the Premier has endorsed two contradictory ways of measuring and billing for electricity use. Was he right when he called for time-of-use, or when he called for the recently-launched "inclining block" system? Hydro’s solution is to ride both horses at once, and put a brave face on it by saying it’s all about "customer choice" and not about obeying conflicting orders from their political master. 

All that we know for sure is that there will be one huge winner from this scheme -  whichever corporate giant gets to sell us these costly gadgets.

Lest we forget - November 11th: Remembrance Day.

For many years Canadians have purchased the simple poppy pin to wear in remembrance of those who died in wars. Many of us learned a poem called "In Flanders Fields [the poppies grow]" written by Canadian Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, of Guelph, Ontario during the First World War. He was a surgeon to the First Brigade of the Canadian Forces Artillery. We cannot imagine the many horrors he witnessed.

Wild poppies flourished between the crosses marking that War's graves. England's "Punch" magazine first published "In Flanders Fields" in December, 1915. Within months the poem became the most popular poem about the First World War. It was used in a 1917 Canadian campaign to help with the war effort, an effort which remarkably raised over 400 million dollars. So the poppy became a very powerful symbol.

Before and since the World Wars, there have been many more armed conflicts around the world and it seems that we get better, more efficient at killing each other. Not one country and no peoples seem to have the corner of the market on righteousness or are innocent with respect to violence. And while this November we remember the soldiers, many, many more civilians have been killed.

Part of our remembrance then must include working for peace. Let's resolve to do that. We can join groups like Stopwar.ca, Amnesty International, religious communities like the Friends (Quakers) or political groups that promote piece. We could simply have an informal group of three or four - like the "Knitting for Peace" group or the Calgarian group called "The Revolutionary Knitting Circle" or donate to the International Red Cross. You probably have better ideas. Go for it! You could join one of the many peace promoting groups.

Symbols for peace are the dove and the odd triangle in a circle.
                                                                                    

The quote that comes to mind is by the giant of a man who embodied the teachings on non-violence, Mahatma Gandhi: "You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

My Sisters and Brothers, I wish you each a peaceful heart!

Gudrun Langolf (Vice President)

 Towards the Seniors Agenda:

By Art Kube
COSCO Ombudsman

The Council of Senior Citizens Organizations of B.C. has always tried to be at the cutting edge of promoting positive changes to deal with the challenges of our increased longevity. It has been our position that we should celebrate our longevity, instead of – as many politicians and economists do – wrongly bemoan it as the cause of budget deficits and a rationale for the elimination of social programs.

COSCO sponsored two major conferences which disavowed these myths. They put forward the positive building blocks for programs which would deal humanely with changing demographics without breaking the bank. The principles which came out of these conferences were that seniors had to be the driving force advocating for these changes, that changes must not be planned for seniors but be planned with seniors, that seniors are a greatly under utilized asset and not a liability, and that seniors are helping seniors.

Since the first conference of six years ago we have come a long way. We have grown in size, scope and recognition. Organizations serving seniors have started to adopt our language and promoting seniors agendas, unfortunately with very little seniors input.

The B.C. government, in response to our strong demand for a universal home-care and home-support program, created a volunteer run sham program of non-medical home support while cutting the budget of accredited home support. It has also denied us real input. We are spending considerable time and effort fighting these transgressions of the provincial government and its agents; however we cannot allow these transgressions to distract us from continuing to build COSCO and our agenda for seniors.

With this in mind the Executive of COSCO is preparing to hold a major conference on Oct. 1 and 2, 2012, on the issues of “The Challenges and Opportunities of our Increased Longevity”. This conference will build on the success of our two previous conferences.

There are a number of issues which must be explored:

Is there discrimination on the basis of age in the delivery of health care?

Have we reached the maximum longevity?

How have other jurisdictions aging populations dealt with it?

What are the economics of aging?

These are some of the important issues which require answers and resolution. The National Pensioners and Senior Citizens Federation agreed to become a co-sponsor of the conference. We will also seek to get other kindred groups and government to become patrons of the conference.

We will commission research papers on issues to be dealt at the conference, so as to maintain our high credibility of the outcomes of the conference. We expect again a fully subscribed attendance composed of seniors, kindred groups, social planners, academics and representatives from the three levels of government.

You might want to mark the dates of Oct. 1 and 2, 2012, for this important conference. Hopefully, this conference will provide the remaining building blocks for a comprehensive seniors’ agenda which can deal effectively and humanely with our changing demographics. We will keep you informed as the conference planning progresses.

Poverty and Pensions

By Alice Edge

In 2010, Statistics Canada reported that there were just over 3 million Canadians living in poverty in 2008. This is just at the beginning of the recession and if past experience is reviewed we cannot assume that Canadians will avoid an increase in numbers before the recession is over.

The rate of poverty among seniors has seen a steady decline since the mid-1970s. The poverty rate among seniors 65+ years is now at 4.9% (2007). This “success” story in poverty reduction has been primarily due to rising private pensions. Of concern was the 18% increase in the incidence of poverty amongst seniors in 2008 during the beginning of the current recession. Is this a sign of things to come? Employers are targeting private pensions in an attempt to reduce the wage bill and more seniors are working longer or returning to the work force to supplement their incomes.

While working, the wage gap between men and women, was 65% in 2008. Women face challenges of accumulating the same pension income as men. In addition, 40% of women work in low quality, low-minimum wage jobs, making it impossible to save much, if any, pension income.

The Canadian Labor Congress and its affiliates have been advocating for improvement in the public pension system. In their campaign, “Retirement Security for Everyone”, they are asking for the CPP public pensions to double, increase pensions for poor seniors and introduce a system of pension insurance. While most of the provincial and territorial finance ministers are in agreement, the federal government says, “now is not the time”. For many older adults the time is now because later is too late for them.