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Thunder Bay native Barbara Reynolds lived and regularly paid her pension in the UK for 20 years before returning to Canada where she made another one-off payment to the UK government to top up her contributions.
That didn’t stop her from worrying about paying her apartment rent in Halifax this month, after she was unceremoniously cut off from her pension by a UK government that said she had failed to show she was still alive. .
Reynolds told TBEN News she was stunned when she received a letter from the UK Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) “that they had not received the philosophy they had sent me in March and that my pension was suspended because they had not received it.” done”. t receive the certificate.
“I was in shock, absolute shock, because I didn’t receive the life certificate in March when they said they sent it.”
“The rents are terribly expensive,” she added. “I don’t have a pension because they shut it down in July. Well, I have a small savings account that I can take advantage of for a few months, but after that, I mean, I don’t know.”
The association representing British retirees in Canada reports that thousands of people across Canada appear to have received similar notices of termination, all saying that “there is no appeal” against the decision.
Reynolds and other retirees insist they never received the proof of life request in the first place.
Thursday morning, after repeated phone calls and letters of protest, Reynolds was relieved to receive a call from the DWP assuring her that her pension would be reinstated. For some other UK retirees, the cut-off date has been extended so they can collect proof of life. Others have stopped their payments.
The DWP told TBEN News it will reinstate the affected retirees, but only after they go through a process they must initiate themselves.
“We have taken steps to enable settlement of life certificates by telephone and encourage those affected to contact our International Pension Centre,” the UK government said. “All payments are made retroactively.”
‘A monumental cock-up’
“I’m still trying to get to the bottom of this,” British Conservative MP Sir Roger Gale told TBEN News. “But it sounds like there has been a monumental blunder on the part of the DWP, which has caused a tremendous amount of unnecessary suffering.”
Gale, chair of the UK Parliament’s all-party committee on frozen pensions, said: “We are now clearly urging all unpaid pensions to be reinstated as a matter of urgency. But we also need to get to the bottom of what went wrong .”
The DWP has admitted that the original request letters did not reach retirees in Canada before being cut off. But the explanations for that error have shifted.
Initially, the department suggested that Canada Post misplaced the letters. “We understand the frustration of customers affected by the delays in Canadian mail,” it told British newspapers the Daily Telegraph and Daily Express.
But when TBEN News insisted on explaining whether Canada Post was indeed to blame, DWP responded with a brief statement with a subtle but significant language change: “We understand the frustration and concerns of customers in Canada affected by postal delays. .”
When asked by TBEN News whether it would stick to its original debt allocation, DWP did not answer directly.
Canada Post’s Phil Legault told TBEN News that “although we continue to investigate and make inquiries with Royal Mail, we have not received any specific complaints about this matter.”
Gale told TBEN News that the accusation was never credible at first.
“I find it rather hard to believe that an organization known to be normally as efficient as the Canadian Postal Service would somehow manage to lose thousands of letters,” he said. “It just doesn’t work.
“So it seems to me that someone in the DWP in the UK made this claim to try and justify why the messages were not received and why people suddenly found themselves having their pension effectively terminated without notice.”
Retirees don’t buy explanations
Reynolds was equally skeptical of the DWP’s initial claim that “Canadian postal delays” were the cause.
“I seriously doubt it was Canada Post’s fault. Because why would a lot of mail all over Canada get lost for that one item, the life certificate?’ she said. “So I’d say it’s the pension service. They have a problem there.’
Ian Andexser of Nanaimo, BC heads the Canadian Alliance of British Pensioners and was also notified that his retirement would be halted. He’s been given a month’s reprieve from that cut-off as he gathers the evidence he needs to show DWP he’s still very much alive.
“As I am well aware of these forms of proof of life I can assure you that if I had received the first it would have gone straight back to the UK to ensure my pension was not suspended,” he said. .
“I find it utterly abhorrent that the UK government is turning around and blaming the Canadian mailing system for this, which is basically what they have done, as you can see in a number of newspaper articles published in the UK.”
Unequal treatment of Canadian retirees
Andexser said that even if the current crisis of non-payment is corrected, the UK government will continue to treat its approximately 130,000 retirees in Canada in an unfair and discriminatory manner by refusing to index their pensions to inflation, as it does for UK retirees in Canada. the US and Europe.
“The 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, denouncing what he called a “ridiculous situation” in which a British retiree living in the US ends up getting more money than any other British retiree who has paid the same contributions.
Gale agreed that this is the crux of the problem for British retirees in Canada, and one that will persist even if the current mess is resolved.
“It must be crazy that someone who lives on one side of Niagara Falls in Canada has a frozen pension, when a hundred yards across the river in the United States that pension has been upgraded,” he said.
The UK 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 countries in Europe and elsewhere.
Gale said the situation is not due to a lack of effort on the part of Canada.
“Canada has made the offer to enter into a reciprocal agreement,” he said. “The British government, hiding behind this argument of no reciprocal settlement, is now saying, ‘Well, we don’t want a reciprocal settlement.’
“I’m sorry, you can’t get it both ways. Canada made the offer. We must accept the offer and then honorably pay what is due.’
In any case, Gale said, “this idea that there must be a mutual arrangement before a pension can be calculated on a pro rata basis is utter nonsense.”
Even without a mutual agreement, Canadian retirees living in the UK already have inflation-linked pensions because the Canadian government has unilaterally decided to do so.
“Canada respects its retirees wherever they live in the world,” Andexser said.
Trading Leverage
This unequal treatment is costly not only for the individual British pensioner in Canada, but also for the Canadian taxpayer – who must come to the rescue when British pensioners fall into genteel poverty.
In addition, hundreds of millions of dollars are withheld that would be spent in the Canadian economy.
As Canada’s calls for change have been rejected by a British government saving money under the status quo, Andexser said, it’s time for Canada to use the influence it has over the UK
“I have repeatedly tried to get through to Commerce Secretary Mary Ng to point out that pension issues had recently been included in post-Brexit trade talks Britain had with some of the countries in the EU. [European Economic Area]’, he said. “And the answer I keep getting from the trade department is that pensions should not be part of trade agreements.
“Well, that’s bullshit. Britain has already set the precedent. And for us it’s a no-brainer that Canada should insist that this part of the trade talks include the end of the frozen pension issue where British pensioners dealing with in Canada.”
Andexser said that while in the past UK pensions have steadily but slowly lost value, they are now eroding several times faster due to dramatically higher inflation. Costs to the Canadian economy are also rising much faster now, he added.
“And I just pray for all these people suffering in Canada that the Canadian trade delegation will finally recognize that this is the best chance they’ve had in over 25 years to push for Britain to end this discrimination.”
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