Streets and Avenues are a mess
Editor:rnWhat can be simpler than having avenues running east and west and streets running north and south?
Oh! I know. We'll take one area of town and name the streets and avenues after trees.
Then we'll take another area and name them after flowers and we'll take another and name them after birds.
Yeah! That's for the birds all right.
On Jan. 31. A lady fell outside and broke her leg (we found out later). We called for an ambulance to come to the Reflections Guest House on Meadowlark Drive. As we were all outside, we saw the ambulance go screaming by and up to the golf course area. After we reached them on the phone and gave them new directions they returned to 74th Ave. They promptly turned east into town instead of west to Meadowlark Drive. Sometime later we saw the ambulance come along Meadowlark Drive from the Hwy. 3 area. They came very slow and almost went by our street but saw us waving and came our way. This whole episode took probably between 15 to 20 minutes.
Suppose this lady had had a heart attack?rnNow I'm not blaming the ambulance drivers because I can't find any streets in this town either.
I'm putting the blame right on our town fathers for choosing to rename our streets. Maybe they should have another look at our mess of streets and avenues?rnDon WeisrnOsoyoos
Editor:rnI am sure the following will be of interest to other retirees.
I am a member of a retired group called Pionairs. Pionairs represent thousands of retirees across Canada from Air Canada and the former Canadian Airlines.
Just recently we sent letters to Finance Minister Goodale and Prime Minister Martin asking that they strongly consider allowing retirees to split their income between spouses in order to save retirees from the tax burden and have the benefit of enjoying more of our hard earned retirement dollars. Goodale replied with an extremely long list of excuses why this would not be considered, even though the Government promotes it for the Canada Pension Plan. Bottom line, he said no. Mr. Goodale's main argument for opposing pension splitting is that the individual is the basic unit of Canada's personal income tax system.
That is a myth. Successive governments have compromised the individual principle whenever it suited them. Splitting and sharing income is allowed for family businesses, for many professionals, for dual income, for spousal RRSP's, CPP and family trusts. Tax credits and spousal RRSP's are simply a back door for splitting in a very watered-down inefficient way. Canada's tax system has evolved into a hybrid. Adjustments, patches and fixes over the years only made the system increasingly unfair and excessively complicated. Our tax system wandered further and further away from horizontal equity, the basic requirement for fairness in a tax system. Complications of rules have only disguised the issue allowing the taxman to present an illusion of fairness. Mr. Goodale wants retirees to pay the penalty and remain silent. Many retirees were born and/or raised during the Great Depression and nurtured families when homemaker and breadwinner were the norms of the Post-Victorian era. Married women were discrimi-nated against especially in the work place with lower pay and limited opportunity than male counterparts. The unfairness was com-pounded by past discriminations where many married female spouses were forced out of their careers by cruel and discriminatory labour practices that denied jobs and promotions to married women and pregnant workers. Married teachers were excluded even in the mid seventies.
For seniors the inequity was further compounded by the erosion over the years of family savings by the unfair tax penalties on single-income house-holds. Ironically, it's the woman who suffers the most and longest as she lives 5-8 years longer than her husband whose pension often dies with him. Society has changed but why would we want to punish mom and dad who followed the rules of the day? Australia joined with many other Western countries and introduced new splitting rules effective Jan. 1, 2006.
We now have a new Member of Parliament for our constituency and I wonder if he would introduce a private members bill to extend the current Canada Pension Plan/Quebec Pension Plan spousal splitting (sharing) option to other employment pension income (private pensions, RRIF's etc.)? I believe that in the long run, this would save the government money as we seniors would have more disposable income and be in a better position to take care of ourselves in our golden years rather than be a burden on other Canadians.
Another question for our new MP: If elected will you support legislation revising the Pension Benefits Standards Act to strengthen the rights of pension plan members (ensure corporations maintain the full solvency requirements of their plans on a continual basis, etc.)? Good luck in Ottawa.
Tom MartinrnOsoyoosrn
