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Page 6, Whitby Free Press. Wednesday, November 30,1994 The only Newspaper owned and operated by Whitby residents for Whitby residents! MEMBER OF: ONTARIO CANADIAN COMMUNITY COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER LCNANEWSPAPER ASSOCIATION ASSOCIATION CANADIAN CIRCULATIONS CNA DIVISION AUDIT BOARD ISSN#0844-398X The Whitby Free Press is distributed free to 99% of the homes in Whitby, Brooklin, Ashburn & Myrte as well as numerous public and commercial outlets in Whitby, Oshawa, Ajax, Pickering & Port Perry. 27,000 COPIES DELIVERED WEEKLY MAIL SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE Canada $32 + GST • Outside Canada $75 + GST Published every Wednesday by 677209 Ontario Inc. Box 206, 131 Brock St. N., Whitby, Ontario L1N 5S1 Phone: 668-6111 Out of town: 1-800-668-0322 Fax: 668-0594 Doug Anderson - Publisher Maurice Pifher - Editor Alexandra Martin - Production Manager Printed on newsprint with minimum 20% recycled content using vegetable based inks. O Ail written materlal, illustrations and advertising contalned hereln is protected by copyright. Any reproduction by any means for commercial purposes without the express permission of the newspaper Is prohlbited and s a violation of Canadian copyright law. Reproduction for non-commercial distribution should bear a credit Une to the Whitby Free Press. CPP in sorry state By Alex Shepherd Durham riding MP I'm feeling an uneasiness about our Canada pensions and how the civil service manaaes them. Recently at a Public Accounts Committee meeting -- which I vice-chair -- I asked an assistant deputy minister, appearnng before us, the amount of the unfunded liability of CPP (unfunded liability of CPP is the money needed to pay future pensions). He couldn't tell me. I was shocked. I told him to go figure it out and tell me this week. It is disconcerting to discover that the so called "managers" of our pensions are not thinking about the future. The premiums you pay to CPP are placed in a fund and out of that comes the benefits. Good plan -- as long as more people work and pay into it than collect. Unfortunately, Canada's population is aging. That means more people are collecting than paying. In order to continue paying what is currently received premiums will have to triple by the year 2015. That is the equivalent of a 300 per cent tax increase on employers and their employees. Furthermore, anyone born after 1980 will receive less money from CPP than they contributed. Clearly CPP is not a smart investment for them. Once they are adults, they will probably tell.government they are not going to pay CPP. Why keep the qeneration cgoing who mismanaged the fund and stuck them with the bill? In other words, those 15-year olds you see around you, and those younger, are going to want private institutions. The portion of CPP invested is also mismanaged. CPP money is invested in provincial government bonds paying interest a f ull three per cent less than that paid in private institutions. If you feel the money is safer with provincial governments, think of this. If CPP money was invested in private institutions it would be insured by the federal government. Investing in provincial governments is only providing the provinces with a subsidy at your expense. I tind the administration of CPP funds also sadly lacking. Over $250 million is lost each year to people who applied for disability pensions, received them, are now back te work but still getting pensions. That's a $250-million loss annually. Something else I find strange: 40 per cent of ail CPP disability claims are rejected, yet 60 per cent of these are allowed on appeal. Something is wrong. Alex Shepherd is MP for Durham riding which includes Whitby, north of Taunton Road. To reach lis constituency office, cal! 721-7570 (Oshawa). The Whitby Free Press welcomes letters to the editor on any subject of concem te our readers. Letters should be brief and to the point - rarely more than 300 words. All letters must be accompanied by the name, address and telephone number of the writer. However, on request, your name may be withheld from publication if we agree there is a vahd reason. The newspaper reserves the right to reject or edit ail letters. Send to: The Editor, Whitby Free Press, Box 206, Whitby, Ont. L1N 5S1, or drop through our mail slot at 131 Brock St. N. To theedir m- again others over the petition. I merely wanted to point out to you ail that the accusations made in the letter were not factual. Gord Mills MPP Durham East 'Low life' display To the editor: A letter to all Whitby's caring people. I was shocked more than I can ever remember being at the grim, disgusting electric 'Put to Death'. chair brazenly on display in one of our downtown store windows. I suffered through a very frightening war in the south of England just because people complacently kept saying "Oh, it will never happen here." Let us put our foot down collectively on this kind of garbage and terror and say "ow life actions will not have a home in Whitby." A concerned citizen against violence. Joan E. Mace Whitby To the editor: Re: Letter, 'Somewhere, the format changed,' Free Press, Nov. 23 Dear Ms. Holdsworth: I will once again attempt to set the record straight. The format for the petitions handed to me by MPP Drummond White, for presentation in the Ontario legislature, was incorrect. And, no, that format wasn't changed the day before the petition was presented. The government has no control over a petition being addressed improperly. We can't waive the rules in place. Everyday, once Question Period ends, all but the MPPs assigned duty in the legislature leave for other duties outside of the legislature. Our schedules as MPPs include sitting on committees which usually sit after Question Period. This is a normal, everyday, ongoing function that has been the way business is conducted at Queen's Park for the last 50 years. I am indeed sorry that the normal function of MPPs in proceeding to other duties was conceived by you as being an "orchestrated exodus." That was not the case at all. My letter to the press and to you was not an attack on you and Street job was well done To the edItor: With regard to the controversy about the sewer construction in Brooklin, we would like to point out that Hard-Co Construction did our street, which is Cassels Road East, and several other adjoining streets. The construction started in the middle of May and the street was curbed and paved and our driveways done by the end of August with as little inconvenience as possible. Hard-Co did an excellent job and we would highly recommend them for any future construction work in Brooklin. Art and Betty Cryderman Brooklin AN ELECTRIC CHAIR is in the window of this shop location just south of the four corners. A fish and chip store will apparently be established at the location. The display has since been covered by plywood. Photo by Mark Reesor, Whitby Free Press For the record