Put the sign of success on your front yard.
Lynn Chipley
A7
306-634-1020
lynn.chipley@century21.ca
CPP and OAS hiked a bit at start of new year
Wasted food, and valuable people Norm Park
The beginning of the new year also means a small hike in Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and Old Age Security (OAS) payments to eligible recipients. Employment and Social Development Canada announced on Dec. 30 that CPP benefits will increase by 1.2 per cent for those already receiving these benefits. For 2016, the maximum CPP retirement benefit for new recipients age 65, will be $1,092.50 per month, an increase of $330 over the full year compared with the 2015 maximum retirement benefit. The new CPP rates will be in effect until Dec. 31, 2016. The CPP benefits are revised once a year, in January,
All Things Considered Forty per cent of the food that is prepared in North America is wasted. We throw away nearly half our edibles … food that would gratefully be used efficiently elsewhere. We have arbitrary best before dates that, in reality, mean nothing unless the package is damaged. We toss unwanted cuts of meat and vegetables. We throw bruised fruit and, of course, a lot of old cheese and stale breads are rejected. A nutritionist I listened to last week, explained how food scraps can make great meals, and we’re not talking about left-over turkey here. We can turn it into dog food, or a tasty meat loaf. The choice is ours. One person’s waste is another person’s dinner. She said if we were more careful with so-called “waste foods,” we could also be reducing greenhouse gases. I often maintain there is no global food shortage. Our problem seems to be in marketing and transportation. Now we can add the waste element. There’s lots of food dear diary, but not enough people are out there who will buy it for the poor and not enough transporters to get it to them cost-effectively. So take away the yuk factor with food waste and turn it into an yum factor. Changing topics now. This past week our city had to say goodbye to a couple more of our community pegs. More recent residents of Energy City may not have known Jeanne Perry and Bob Larter, but believe me, these people helped make things happen in Estevan for decades. They moved the pegs on the bar upward a few notches. Larter, an ambitious and clever businessman and an elected MLA, vacated his seat so Grant Devine, a PC party leader could represent Estevan in the legislature. He was acknowledged with an appointment as a business envoy to London, representing Saskatchewan’s interests on several international business and cultural fronts. Estevan was always in his sights and mind. I was fortunate enough to know Bob at the height of his influence-bearing years and later, during his declining years he put to good use with pleasant ambles through our neighbourhood. Always a gentleman with spirit. Jeanne was also filled with good spirit, a wry smile and wicked sense of humour. She was a woman with plenty of skills on the domestic and community front. Not only could she get the cultural ball rolling on numerous files, she could see projects through to completion with a finishing touch. Yep, Jeanne has been another one of our city’s Grand Dames who moved us forward while never seeking spotlights. I can recall two entertaining, but also rather frustrating chats with Jeanne, a native of Ystradgynlais, Wales, (try saying that after three shots of rum and Diet Pepsi) after I learned she had been engaged within the well known WWII, Bletchley Park decoding team, associated with the wonderful Enigma story. She downplayed her role. “I was just a lowly secretary, doing a job for the eggheads, and Bletchley was a roughly hewn, wretchedly built place to work,” she said and yes, she often talked like that. I countered with the fact that with her language skills (unpronounceable Welsh) and German, she might have been a key factor. “Nope, we were young girls on the lookout for handsome young men and they weren’t in Bletchley. I just did my job,” she would say with a quiet chuckle and that smile.. She met her man, Allan, a Canadian and fortunately that liaison brought her here. Say goodbye Estevan to a couple more of our foundational rocks.
based on changes over the 12-month period between November and October in the Consumer Price Index, which is the cost-of-living measure used by Statistics Canada. OAS benefits will be increased by 0.1 per cent for the first quarter. The OAS benefits, Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) and the Allowances, will all be hiked by the same 0.1 per cent for the first quarter. These benefits undergo review and re-calculation for increased payments every quarter. The basic OAS pension will increase from $569.95 to $570.52 per month, an increase of 57 cents. OAS benefits are also based on
the Consumer Price Index to reflect the cost-of-living increases. The OAS program, funded through general tax revenues, provides a basic monthly income for Canadian seniors. Last fiscal year this amounted to $44.1 billion in benefits provided to 5.6 million individuals. The CPP and Quebec Pension Plan, on the other hand, is funded through contributions made by Canadian workers, their employers and the self-employed and through investment earnings on the plan’s funds. In addition to retirement benefits, the CPP provides disability, death, survivor and children’s benefits.
Green Party says they’re ready In a post-Christmas media release, Saskatchewan Green Party leader Victor Lau stated the party was prepared for the April 4 provincial general election. Lau said, “2015 was a year that allowed the Saskatchewan Green Party to mobilize throughout the province for the next provincial election. And when the writ is dropped, our party will be ready for the campaign that follows,” said Lau, who has been at the helm of the Greens for at least three years now. Lau said it takes a lot of work to prepare for an election, but it will be worth it if and when the party makes history and elects its first MLAs. “While Premier Wall chose to push back our election date to April of 2016, Saskatchewan Greens have used this time to prepare in every way possible,” said Lau. “We will be ready to charge out of the gate, even before
the writ is dropped in the first week of March.” The Green Party candidate in Estevan is Sigfredo Gonzalez, who has been the party’s candidate in past elections, beginning in 1999. The party noted it has nominated a full slate of 61 candidates and that includes gender parity and they have built a full election platform that includes cost analysis with the platform being delivered as the campaign rolls out. The party has also built a new website, especially for the campaign and many of the candidates, he said, have already been out knocking on doors and phoning voters while keeping in touch with the electorate yearround. The Green Party, Lau suggested, has identified key election issues like the failed carbon capture project at Boundary Dam.
The building of a first-time campaign team has been a challenge but is a task now completed and the team will help the active Green Party candidates and that team includes a centralized team that will keep the candidates and public focused on the party’s election messages and strategies. The party has also been in fundraising mode with events during the past year which will help the candidates deliver their messages. “Unlike any election campaign the party has waged since it was founded in 1999, the Saskatchewan Green Party will be a full participant in the campaign, because we will be ready for the battle as never before. The election will allow our party to shine as never before. The election will allow our party to showcase the solutions that will bring real change to Saskatchewan and the world,” Lau said.
NDP claim money being wasted The New Democratic Party came out of the pre-campaign starting blocks in late November, pointing to a couple of health care related issues promoted by the provincial government they claim are costing provincial taxpayers too much money. The NDP stated that health care executive salaries had climbed, on average, as much as 20 per cent in the past three years with some regions boosting the pay of top administrators by as much as 37 to 46 per cent. That situation, they said, was not right, especially when patients are experiencing cuts to programs and the number of surgeries being done in a year. Danielle Chartier, the health critic for the NDP said the wait times in emergency wards and time spent waiting for an appointment with specialists were too lengthy and in the meantime, “frontline health-care workers are run off their feet. Seniors care is in crisis and still being ignored. Overcrowding in Saskatchewan’s hospital is causing
hallway medicine and delays for surgeries,” she said. Chartier said the Regina Qu’Appelle Health Region had the largest increase in executive pay over the past three years, a 46 per cent jump to around $3 million. Executives in the Five Hills Health Region had their pay boosted by 37 per cent to more than $2.74 million and in Cypress Hills the executive salaries climbed 25 per cent. On the second matter, the NDP said they have discovered there are more than 120 people who have been hired solely to promote the John Black Lean program in Saskatchewan at a cost of tens of millions of dollars to Saskatchewan taxpayers. There are over 96 full-time staff members in the 12 Kaizen Promotion Offices in the health regions, including six in the Sun Country Health Region which covers southeast Saskatchewan. That number also includes the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency. There are
at least four full-time Lean specialists in the Health Ministry itself, said the NDP critics and five more in eHealth plus another 17 devoted exclusively to Lean promotion in the Provincial Kaizen Promotion Office. “That doesn’t include the Kaizen Operations Team staff within hospitals and care homes. It also doesn’t include Lean staff at the Kaizen Promotion offices in 3S Health. “Talk about messed up priorities — the Sask. Party is still shoveling tens of millions of dollars every year into promoting the John Black Lean program,” said Cam Broten, NDP leader. “At the same time they’re eliminating 150 hands-on health-care jobs in the Regina area alone and cutting the number of surgeries throughout Saskatchewan.” Broten said the 97 Kaizen Promotion Office employees are paid about $11 million in total. “We simply can’t afford more years of blindly throwing money into the Lean money pit,” Broten said.
Show Some Love... Adopt a Pet! Hello! My name is Allie, I am a spayed, 8 year old Bichon Frise cross Shih Tzu . I get along very well with cats, dogs and children, so any type of home would suit me fine. The only catch is that I am a very picky eater. I am currently in a foster home until I’m adopted, so please call the shelter for any questions or to schedule an appointment to meet me!
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Hello! I’m Joe! I’m a very sweet boy who likes long walks in the park and belly scratches. I am about 5 years of age. Please call the shelter and ask about me!
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