The Other
Blokes Blog

The Montreal Gazette this morning points out that “British fair play” has a hollow ring to many British pensioners in Canada. This affects some 150,000 British pensioners in Canada and also some 300,000 British pensioners living in Australia. The reason is that the pensions that these pensioners receive from the UK are not indexed with inflation. So in purchasing power they’re declining every year. A pensioner who came here say 20 years ago has only a fraction of the purchasing value that applied when coming here.

Even the British Pensions Minister, Jeff Rooker, some six years ago admitted, “I have already said I am not prepared to defend the logic of the present situation: it is illogical.” A Law Lord less sympathetically declared last year, “In my opinion the sense of grievance may be understandable but it is not justified.” The even stranger fact is that if all these British Pensioners had gone to the USA, Germany, Sweden or even the Falkland Islands then their pensions would have been indexed. One wonders how the eminent Law Lord can feel that this differential behaviour is justified.

The Canadian Alliance of British Pensioners is now recruiting more members to help take this Human Rights issue before an international court in Strasbourg, France. There are more details in another post on Frozen pensions case to go to Europe. The CABP has been supported by the Government of Canada in its efforts. Let’s hope that British fair play eventually applies.

Tags: pensions, fair play, Human Rights