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National Trust
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For more information call us at 1.800.451.3225 |
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Status as at February 18, 2003
Previous updates are archived on this site. Click
here to review them.
Victory - On November 22, 2002 the Ontario Court of Appeal
released its long-awaited decision in the Monsanto case, at which AFTER
had intervenor status. The result was a unanimous 3-0 decision in our favour. (Click
here to read).
Now, this decision is being challenged by the ACPM (Association of Canadian
Pension Management), whose membership includes Scotiabank, and they filed an
appeal to The Supreme Court of Canada on January 21, 2003. The Supreme Court
will determine whether their appeal has sufficient merit to warrant being
heard. Historically, that Court hears about 8% of the applications to appeal.
The foregoing action is forcing AFTER to incur further costs
particularly as Scotiabank continues to decline our repeated requests to deal
fairly and equitably on this matter. Our latest February 2003 mailing includes
a detailed update and further request for your financial support. (Click
here to read).
As reported in the December 2002 update (Click
here to read), the Ontario Provincial Government introduced
proposed amendments to the Ontario Pension Benefits Act (PBA) which, if passed
would have, retroactively to 1988 (15 years), wiped out rights of thousands of
members of defined benefit pension plans. (Click
here to read the proposed changes). The retroactivity proposal
was strongly lobbied for by the ACPM. (Click
here to read their June 3, 2002 letter to Janet Ecker, Ontario’s
Minister of Finance).
As a result of a groundswell of opposition to these changes lead by AFTER,
the Provincial Government withdrew these proposals and publicly promised to
seek employee input (Click
here to read their press release), including representation by
AFTER, should they reintroduce them.
AFTER wrote Scotiabank Directors on November 29, 2002 (Click
here to read) and not one of them replied. AFTER received a
dismissive response on their behalf from the Bank on December 19, 2002. (Click
here to read). Accordingly, members of AFTER will
represent your pension interests once again at the Bank's Annual General
Meeting in Halifax to be held on March 25, 2003.
Your AFTER Committee continues to take a leadership role, constantly
monitoring developments around our cause on behalf of our membership, which as
you know, includes all pensioners and former NT employees (some of whom are
current Scotiabank staff).
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