TORONTO - The Ontario government will pay into Nortel's under funded pension plan to help some of the company's anxious pensioners, in a move that comes just a month before they vote in a byelection in an Ottawa riding where many of them live.
A government source says the province will pay into the Pension Benefits Guarantee Fund so that pensioners will receive up to $1,000 per month. No details were provided.
Don Sproule, president of The Nortel Retirees and Former Employees Protection Canada organization , said he was still waiting for details of the announcement but believes it involves winding up the plan -- a move that may help those pensioners earning $12,000 a year but would do little for anyone whose plan is on the higher end.
It also only applies to retirees who worked in Ontario -- not the 30 per cent of Nortel workers from Montreal, Calgary of Halifax.
"There is a comfort for the people at the lower end of the scale," Sproule said.
The group had proposed what it considered a "win-win" plan that would have increased the payout to pensioners while decreasing the payments required by the government -- which doesn't appear to be what Duncan is proposing, Sproule said.
But, he added, something clearly needed to be done.
"Nortel, it's a slow motion train-wreck. We know at some point Nortel will stop looking after our pension plan."
Nortel's pension plan is about 30 per cent underfunded but the guarantee fund doesn't contain enough money to cover the shortfall.
On Friday, Bob Chiarelli, Liberal candidate in Ottawa West-Nepean, called on the McGuinty government to ensure there are sufficient funds in the Pension Benefits Guarantee Fund to provide a pension top-up to Nortel pensioners.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath balked at the timing of Sunday's announcement, noting the pensioners have been after both levels of government for more than a year to get some help.
"The only new thing, the only new piece of info here is that there's a byelection on and it's where a lot of those Nortel workers live," she said.
The move, Horwath adds, comes on the heels of last week's funding announcement for a downtown Toronto hospital in the riding of Toronto Centre on the eve of a byelection -- which the Liberals went on to win.
"It looks like the only things the Liberals can do to force the premier to do the right thing for their constituents is to resign and force a byelection," she said.
